Strings of Emotion
by MLfan64
Summary: My Gardevoir and I are gifted with the ability to see emotions like they were strings, floating across the sky. In this, we are alone. I have vowed to never use another Pokémon than her, no matter the incredible odds against us. She's vowed to never use another human. Even in the worst of odds, even in a 1 vs 6, we will never back down. (NOT a romance. Updates twice a week)
1. Strings of Legend

**Strings of Legend**

 _A/N: Quick thing before we begin, this story is mostly set in the anime universe, but there are a lot of head cannons, and a few outright changes. The main one is that the pokemon journey starts at 16, not 10, because who gives out harbingers of death to ten-year-olds? Just clearing that up quickly to avoid confusion. Anyways, let's get started!_

 _(Edited to shorting the overly long intro)_

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first match of the 57th annual Pokémon league!" the announcer said, and the crowd went wild.

The two competitors eyed each other from opposite ends of the field. On one side was Erin. He was a fighting-type trainer, clearly. He had tape wrapped around both of his arms, and a martial arts outfit over the rest of him. A Scrafty stood beside him. Nobody knew what to expect. Martial artists were a dime-a-dozen, but he was clearly skilled if he made it into the top 16 trainers in all of Sinnoh.

His opponent, Kelia, though? She was even more mysterious. She wore a deep black robe, covering her whole body. She was unreadable. Nobody knew who she was. She had no family in the audience. There weren't interviews with the press. She just appeared in the top 16, like a ghost. She had a Gardevoir by her side, in a matching white cloak. It couldn't be said that she had bad team theming, at the very least. Other than that... Well, besides her name, you couldn't even tell she was a girl.

Kelia had the clear advantage, here, with her fairy-type moves easily able to carve through the Scrafty. But if Scizor played it right, using physical moves and playing it safe, it might stand a chance. It was all up to how they played it.

Without further ado, the countdown to the start of the match begun. **10... 9... 8...** **7… 6…**

 **5… 4…**

 **3!**

 **2!**

 **1!**

 **GOOOO!**

"Scrafty, Crunch!" Erin yelled.

Scrafty moved with impressive speed, rushing up to Gardevoir. Two massive teeth appeared before it, going in for some surprise damage before Kelia could react. But as they snapped downwards, the white-robed Gardevoir wasn't there anymore. She appeared behind the Scrafty, like it hadn't attacked at all.

The Scrafty was fast. It reacted and turned quicker than any Scrafty had right to turn, launching another crunch without the need of Erin to tell it to do so. For most trainers it would catch them completely off guard. It seemed, though, that Kelia wasn't most trainers. Gardevoir just wasn't there when the teeth pounded down. After that, the Scrafty tripped up. While it was ready for the first mix-up, it wasn't ready for the second. It was quick to recover, it got back up to its feet in less than a second, but it was too late. The Gardevoir took advantage of the tiny opening, ending it with a single moonblast.

Erin wasn't going to let that get him down. "You did your best, Scrafty," he said. "Return." He thought over his options for a few moments, then snapped his fingers. "Go, Scizor!"

The Scizor spawned out, it's red metal coat flaring against the sun. When spawned, it didn't rush the Gardevoir. It stuck around the back this time. Waiting for the Gardevoir to make its move first, then getting the upper hand by reacting to that. They stared each other down for about two seconds. The moment the Gardevoir realized the Scizor wasn't going to strike it down, the Gardevoir raised its hand. Something like 50 balls of psychic energy summoned in front of her and fired straight at Scizor, barely giving it any time to react at all.

Scizor, like the Scrafty before it, was faster than it looked. Erin's strategy seemed to be all about speed and agility. It ejected its wings and took to the skies, dodging the balls of psychic energy with ease. One ball did graze the Scizor, but it did little damage, as it resisted psychic. After surviving the initial assault, it dived down straight at the Gardevoir. One of its claws turned silver: A metal claw, for a super-effective hit. Gardevoir, as expected, teleported away. As Scizor clawed, it spiraled around, ready to hit the Gardevoir right as it appeared behind it. Of course, it wouldn't have worked if Gardevoir had teleported farther away. But it Erin thought right. It appeared right behind Scizor. Right in the way of its metal claw, with no way to dodge in time.

The impact brought up a spray of dust, making it impossible to see. It was clear the attack connected. But did the Gardevoir tank it, or were its meager defenses not enough?

The dust settled. And Gardevoir stood. She stood, unscathed, _blocking_ the attack. She carried a sword of pure psychic energy in her hands, between the metal claw and her physically fragile body.

The announcers went wild. "Is that a Gardevoir or a Gallade?"

Both sides ignored them. Their minds were on the battle. And it was getting interesting.

The sword disengaged with the claw. And there was a small lull. The Gardevoir gracefully took a few steps back and bowed. After a moment of hesitation, Scizor followed suit. They levied their weapons at each other, one sword, one claw.

And without another moment of hesitation, they each charged.

The swords clashed. Gardevoir's psychic sword held true against the steel, ignoring the type disadvantage like it wasn't there at all. The Scizor was clearly a worse fighter, letting a few blows through, but it was no slouch. After a minute of fighting, they were just about evenly matched. In fact, Scizor started gaining an upper hand. Even if Gardevoir was more skilled, Scizor had more power to its blows. And Scizor found an opening. A small opening, but an opening nonetheless. Whenever its iron claw struck low, its pure power pushed Gardevoir's sword downwards. Far enough downwards that if the next strike went high, there'd be no way to block it. So Scizor swung low again, forcing Gardevoir to block low. After Gardevoir's sword disengaged, momentarily stunned, it went for a blow to the head, where the sword couldn't reach in time.

Too bad it forgot Gardevoir could teleport away. Which it did.

The psychic sword appeared with Gardevoir behind the Scizor, slashing again. Scizor winced, despite the not very effective hit. Each individual hit was doing very little damage, but type advantages didn't matter if Gardevoir didn't have a scratch, and Scizor had many of them. The weak cuts were adding up.

The Gardevoir teleported again, aiming for its right side. Again, it couldn't block.

The battle completely changed. It stopped being even close. The Gardevoir no longer just fought sword-to-claw. It used teleport to maneuver around the Scizor, faster than it could keep up with. The Scizor couldn't block the assault, only blocking maybe one in eight swings., and had no way to fight back. Erin also finally realized the meaning of the cloak. It helped hide Gardevoir's movements, making it hard to read its body language to predict it's moves ahead of time. It was almost unfair. One swing would start on its left and end on its right. It would swing, hitting head on, then teleport in a way that the follow-through would hit again. All the hits showed. Scizor started moving slower. It's movements heavier. It stopped even blocking one in eight attacks. Scizor was just about fainted, still without a single hit on Gardevoir's name.

Something changed. As Gardevoir prepared for a finishing blow, a light appeared in Scizor's eyes. The next time Gardevoir teleported, the strike was blocked. Not only blocked, but parried. It knocked Gardevoir out of its Zen mode, leaving it wide open. Scizor's counter-strike missed Gardevoir by centimeters. The White-robed figure shook it off and kept teleporting, keeping up the assault, but not one hit connected. No matter where around it the strikes were aimed, they were blocked. Maybe Scizor was just a hit from fainting, but it would have to be hit to make that happen. As its determination grew, stronger and stronger, Scizor began to glow, and Gardevoir was knocked backwards.

Tape wrapped around Scizor's arms. Its hands became more human-looking, looking like a human's but wearing very deadly mittens. Its body became slimmer, even more agile than before. Its wings became like miniature swords, sharp enough to cut through diamond. It finished its transformation, a mix of the Scizor and Erin and something entirely new. They had achieved burst evolution, only possible between the closest of trainers and Pokémon. Erin seemed as shocked as everybody else.

Known as natural mega-evolution, it was first used by the runner-up of the Kalos league 5 years back. It was still shrouded by mystery. Research was still being done, but with very few test subjects existed at all to research on, it was slow. It seemed only possible for human-like Pokemon, but that might've been coincidence. It was nearly unbeatable without using mega or burst evolution to combat it. It was a power boost so strong it was almost banned.

As the announcers frantically explained that, the battle raged on.

Erin smiled. "You're tough. But unless you want to unleash your mega Gardevoir, I think you aren't ready for this. This might be the first time this has happened, but I can guarantee you, you're going down."

Kelia said nothing.

Scizor reached out its newly formed hand and a sword appeared in front of it. "No more claw vs sword," Erin said. "It's time for a true duel."

Gardevoir and Kelia simultaneously nodded their heads.

Scizor launched its razor-sharp wings outwards and flew at Gardevoir. Gardevoir jumped towards it, and chaos broke loose. To the audience, it was impossible to see anything. The combatants were moving too fast for the naked eye to see. Gardevoir was everywhere at once, teleporting faster and faster, but Scizor was even more impressive in blocking every strike and striking back just as much, just for Gardevoir to block in return. The swords clashed so fast there was at least one sonic boom.

The two combatants floated upwards into the air. Gardevoir was immune to gravity. Scizor had wings. Both would die to one hit, but not one hit was getting through. Scizor started striking with its razor-sharp wings to protect its back. Gardevoir teleported to fast it was out of existence more than it was in it. The two started spiraling towards the ground, fighting all the way. The clashing was like music. Clink, clink ching-ching-ching! Clink-cl-cl-clink CHING! And with a final blow, the final note of the song, everything went silent. The two figures crashed to the ground and another cloud of dust came upwards in the giant crash. The crowd was silent. And when the victor unveiled, the shock didn't subside. The plain old Gardevoir had defeated the burst-evolved Scizor. And it still didn't have a single scratch.

The rest of the battle went by quickly. No other pokemon could do anything like the Scizor could. The Gardevoir swept the rest of the team without a single scratch on it.

After the battle, the robed figure and her Gardevoir left without another word.

* * *

The speculation went wild. Who was this challenger? How did their Gardevoir get so fast without burst evolution? Did it burst evolve, but the cloak hid it? The other contestants that would soon have to face her themselves straightened their belts. The press all wanted interviews, offering tens of thousands of P for an exclusive interview. But in between battles, no one could even find her. It was like she was a ghost. There for the battle, and then gone.

The only one to get any sort of contact from Keilia was Erin. The day after the fight, he got a letter. It read as follows:

 _To Erin…_

 _I want you to know, you fought well._

 _The fight against your Scizor might've been one of the closest fights I've ever had. It's the closest fight since I did my 'special training,' at least. And I want you to know, I had fun. I might not have shown any emotion during the battle, but I enjoyed myself. And for a trainer as strong as you, you deserve an explanation._

 _I beg of you, come back next year, stronger than before. Get your Scizor even stronger. If I have my way, you shouldn't have to worry about your other Pokemon, but we'll get there when we get there. My point is, if I were anybody else, you would've won. I want you to know, you're probably the second-best trainer here. Unless everybody here's as good as you! Then I have my work cut out for me._

 _You almost beat me. I'll say that much. There were several strikes that missed by a millimeter. With an offense like yours, I wouldn't have lasted even a grazing blow from you. There were so many times I thought I had won, and you just got back on your feet. I beg of you, come back next time and face me in the champion's chair. Because I know I'm making it that far._

 _I should explain to you: That Gardevoir?_

 _It was my only Pokemon._

 _You were closer than you thought. You thought you couldn't beat one of six? You thought you played horribly? No, you couldn't beat one of one._

 _Best wishes for your future,_

 _Kelia- Girl of mystery  
_ Erin rolled up the letter. Who was this girl? This ghost? If she was really telling the truth, this person stupid enough to enter the Pokemon League with only one Pokemon and somehow also smart enough to win?

Who was Kelia?

I'll tell you. I am Kelia. The girl who swept her first match 6-0 with a single Pokemon. The girl who brought a single Gardevoir to the entire Pokemon League. Why do I only have a Gardevoir? How did I get here? Who am I? To understand that, we must go back to the day I first got my Pokemon. The day I turned 16 years old… Both the worst and the best day of my life.

* * *

My alarm went off, but I didn't want to get up. Not because I was too tired. But because of what getting up entailed. It was my 16th birthday. Which meant I had to get my first pokemon and go on a 'journey.'

I haven't believed in that stuff since I was ten. My rose-colored glasses were off.

Mom called from downstairs. "Come on! You don't want to be late, do you?"

You were supposed to go into a lab, and pick one of the three pokemon. The three 'starters.' If you didn't like that, there were other options, like the safari zones, and making a bond with a pokemon in the wild. But most got one of them.

"Coming!" I yelled.

Some people felt the labs were inhumane. Keeping the pokemon all cooped up in balls, making them happy, of course, towards the trainers who released them, but just as a façade to get free. Maybe other labs were like that, and that's awful. Mine wasn't, though. I had a different problem.

"Hurry up! If you're too slow, you might not get one at all!"

I… how do I say this? I can see people's emotions. Physically see them. I can see the bonds. How much people like each other. How much pokemon like each other. I think I'm known as an empath. I don't know where it came from. My parents don't have any parents. It's been like this as long as I remember. I used to think everybody saw like this. What a shock it was to learn I was unique, huh? I've asked, even other empaths don't see it like that.

My mom came to my bedside. "Get up!"

For example, I saw hundreds of strings coming out of my mom, to all sorts of people and other pokemon. From love to hate to ambivalence to friendship to everything in between.

"Alright, alright," I said.

Just because our lab was good, just because of the humane conditions, everything the pokemon did, it was an act. A façade. Maybe a stronger bond would form later, but the pokemon themselves learned they had to be nice only because it meant they could see the world. They didn't care for their trainer at all. Even a pokemon found in the wild has a respect for the trainer, generally. A caught wild Caterpie has a stronger bond than a Charmander with its trainer.

I rolled out of bed. I quickly changed into a nice, sky-blue dress. Might as well have my clothes be bright and cheery if I wasn't.

I slowly shuffled towards the lab. I saw a few kids walking away with their pokemon. Hugging them. The pokemon snuggled them back. Love at first sight. And their emotional bonds were practically nothing.

It was sad. Because there was nothing I could do. Nobody would believe me. Who would believe that their starters were just putting on an act? I wish everyone could see what I saw. I could see strings float through the air. Colors representing the different bonds. It was blinding, but it never stopped being beautiful. Humans to humans, pokemon to pokemon, humans to pokemon. A flock of Wingull flew overhead and the lines connected them. But looking at them, it was heartbreaking.

I stepped into the lab. I put on a fake smile. It was time for the moment I had been regretting. The starter. All three of them looked at me with that false smile. I looked with a false smile back. The professor gave me a speech but I didn't hear it. I heard the emotions. Pride. Happiness. Not a trace of doubt. He didn't even know they were fakes. Unlike me, he believed in the power of the love at first sight of a pokemon.

I looked at the three pairs of glassy eyes. Turtwig. Piplup. Chimchar. It didn't even matter. None of them were really my friends.

The walls started closing in around me. I couldn't breathe. Was this what a panic attack felt like? At that point, in my panic, it was clear as day, and I saw the path of fate. Like an emoI saw the line through the future I was supposed to take. I was supposed to grab my pokemon. A Piplup. Those glassy eyes, they would never truly go away. After so long trying and failing to get it to form the bond I've only seen with those who weren't given their starter, I would give up. I would try to let it go into the wild. And I wouldn't even have the courage to do that. Out of my other 5 pokemon, my starter would be the only one I didn't know. Nobody would ever remember me. No one would know about how their Pokemon truly felt. I was supposed to live my life knowing I could've made a difference.

I don't know if I was truly seeing the future. It might've just been my imagination. Honestly, I didn't care if it was only what I felt or if it was the truth. At that point, when I was at my lowest, I made a choice. I wouldn't pick a glassy-eyed puppet. If this was the way my journey was supposed to start, then I didn't deserve a journey.

So, I ran. The professor, taken by surprise, could only watch as I sprinted out the door and into the forest. I ran. I didn't know where I was going. I ran. I was going anywhere but one of those false clinics. I ran and ran and ran. I followed no path. I was hopelessly lost as the trees swallowed me. Maybe I would get lost and die here. If a pokemon attacked, I couldn't defend myself. I didn't have a plan. But I couldn't bear to look at those cold, blank eyes any longer.

After running until I couldn't see a sign of civilization as far as the eye could see, I finally stopped to rest.

Maybe I should've followed my fate. Maybe I should've come up with a more sound plan than just "Run." I could've gotten supplies. I could've brought a pokedex. Heck, I could've bought a few pokeballs.

I shook my head and tried to forget all of that. Enough self-doubt. I looked at the forest. There was a beauty here only I could see. The lines connecting all the bugs in the trees. The Rainbows of rivalries, loves, hates, friendships, indifferences, honor. It was beautiful.

I smiled as I closed my eyes and the tears came down.

I felt something wipe my face, getting rid of the tears. I opened my eyes and saw a Kirlia drying my tears.

I instantly knew something was wrong. No emotional strings came out of her. came out of her. She was just… there. I didn't how good a person she was just by glancing at her, like I could with almost anybody else. She was a blank slate.

It might not seem that big. But for me, it was. Imagine you meet someone new, and they're just a black outline. You can see what they generally look like, but nothing more. That's what it was like for me. After seeing the lines for all those years, looking at the Kirlia was like I was blind. She was almost alien.

In my shock, "Thank you," was all I could muster to say. She had wiped my tears. Even with the thoughts of if all Kirlias were like this swirled through my head, my thoughts of asking who she was, I couldn't even put them into words. Weren't my inner turmoils complicated enough? The confusion and gratitude just mixed with the anger, sadness, happiness, and who knows what other emotions to just make a mess.

"Lia, Kir," Kirlia said, which I can only assume meant "You're welcome."

This Kirlia… even though I couldn't see anything about it, it felt like it was a kindred spirit. There was no logic behind it, but I felt in nonetheless.

I got up. I didn't know where I was going. But I was going towards the future. This Kirlia made up my mind about that. So I started to walk away. Wherever my path might have lead me, this Kirlia was a sign.

As I walked, I turned back to the Kirlia, still standing there by the tree stump I was sitting on. Overcome with emotion even with such a small act of kindness, I spoke. "Kirlia, we're probably never going to meet again. And even though all you did was hand me a tissue leaf, I want you to understand how I feel. I'm not going to ask you to be my pokemon or anything, I don't care about that, not anymore. You probably deserve better. But… please understand that words aren't enough. Your small act of kindness saved me. So, thank you."

I walked away into the forest. I hesitated, half-expecting the Kirlia to follow. But it just stood there, watching as I walked away.

Just as I was turning around a corner, A voice in my mind screamed out, " _WAIT!_ "

I turned quickly. I saw Kirlia extending a hand out to me. Reaching out. I could've kept walking, but I made a choice. I walked back towards her and looked her over. I was still blind. She was alone in a web of emotional strings. We both looked the other over.

"Who are you?" I said.

" _Who are you?_ " I heard the voice in my head say at the same time. I was right, it was telepathy.

We stared each other down for a few more seconds.

I sighed, a bit of my earlier sadness coming back. "Why do you care?" I said.

Kirlia looked at me for a few seconds, as if unsure what to say. " _The strings?_ "

I froze.

"You can see them?"

" _Can you see them?_ " We said simultaneously. The strings of emotional connection... she could see them, too? I wasn't alone?

I was in shock. But I had a more important question.

"Do all of your line see them?" I said.

I waited in anticipation. Did this mean I was part-Gardevoir or something? That would be something. But Kirlia shook her head. " _Do all humans see them?"_

She looked at me with the same look I gave her. She had been alone. I shook my head.

"Let me guess," I said. "You came up to me because I'm the only one who's lines you can't see."

Kirlia nodded. " _Yeah. But also because you were hurting._ "

I couldn't think of anything else to say besides "Thank you."

We sat in silence for a bit. What was there to say? I was just confused. All this time, I thought I was alone. But here's this Kirlia, just as lost and confused as I was.

"What now?" I said.

The Kirlia didn't have an answer.

I looked at the ground. And suddenly, my whirlpool of emotions came back to me. I didn't know why. My sense of fear, anger, sadness, it spiraled inside, even stronger than it had before.

I couldn't join this Kirlia, only to betray her later. I couldn't see her emotions, I couldn't know if I hurt her. I would do something to lose her trust forever.

The Kirlia, the pokemon who's name I didn't even know, said, " _A-are you okay?_ "

I looked at her with a wistful expression. "No. No I'm not."

I turned and ran. Kirlia grabbed my hand with hers, and time froze. I felt a flash of… something. A feeling I didn't recognize. An emotional string came out of me. It flew across my vision and connected me to her.

Time moved again, and I broke free of her grip and ran away. I wanted to leave everything behind. But I couldn't ignore the string, always at the edge of my vision. A color that I didn't recognize, an emotion of mystery. I ran, deeper and deeper into the forest. The line didn't get any thinner. Distance meant thickness. She was following me. The forest got darker and darker. She didn't deserve someone like me. She didn't need a trainer.

As I ran faster and faster, as the forest got darker and darker, I kept running. I ran headfirst into a sleeping Luxray.

I tripped over it and fell. Kirlia stopped just short of it.

It woke up. And it was angry. As it prepared to strike, Kirlia hit it from behind with a blast of psychic energy. " _Don't just sit there! Run!_ "

The Luxray was angry. It launched a thunderbolt at Kirlia. Kirlia pirouetted out of the way, but she still hit with some of the sparks. "What about you?" I said.

" _I'm fine! Go!_ "

The Luxray howled. Suddenly, yellow eyes opened all around us.

" _Go! This is your only chance before they're alert!"_

I didn't run. Not any longer.

I did a roundhouse kick, hitting the luxray in the back. I grabbed Kirlia's hand sprinted in between two of the sentries. I made it, but the rest of the pack started running after us. And the two of us were already out of breath.

" _If we don't make it out of here alive, I blame you."_

"If we do make it out of here alive, I blame you."

" _That doesn't make any sense!"_

"Well, we're about to die anyways, so does it really matter?"

The wolves continued to gain on us.

" _Any bright ideas?"_

"I was about to ask you that."

" _Why me?_ "

"Because you're the one with the psychic powers!"

" _I'm pretty much dry from talking with you, to be honest. Telepathy is hard!"_

"Are you kidding me? Then stop talking!"

" _Ever since we got connected by this string, it's just as easy as talking, though!"_

"Too little, too late!"

A luxray launched a thunderbolt at me. Kirlia pushed me down and it sailed over my head.

I looked back at the Luxrays. They wanted blood. But I saw something. Their bonds with each other… some of them were weak. Meaning we might be able to use them against one another.

I called backwards, "Hey! If you catch us, who's going to get to eat us?"

I know, it's a tad cliché, dealing with people like these. But it definitely did the trick. Even if they didn't show it, their lines toward one another got weaker. More distrustworthy.

I tried to use telepathy. " _Kirlia, stop! I have a plan."_

Kirlia nodded. We both just stopped and braced ourselves. One of the Luxray dived at us, though. It didn't work…

But it hit a barrier. A protect. Kirlia had used protect.

I had one last chance. "It's only 30 seconds until the protect wears off. You'd better decide who gets us!"

A few Luxray pounded on the shield, but none of them could get through.

"Come on! Oh, I bet it's like, whoever gets us gets to eat us, right? Or does the leader get a bigger cut? Or maybe the one I tripped over, you want revenge, right? Come on, who gets the biggest cut? Step forwards."

It shouldn't have worked. Still, it was the only strategy I had.

The Luxrays started growling at one another. I shut up, so they'd stop paying attention to me. Where the links were weakest, arguments started forming.

Kirlia and I slipped into the wilderness as they fought.

After that, we ran. Not a word between us, we just ran, with whatever energy we had left. We left the dark forest behind us.

We reached a clearing. We walked over and slumped against 2 trees.

" _Hey Human?"_

"Yeah?"

" _You never told me. What's your name?"_

"It's Kelia. What's your's?"

" _My name is Eris."_

"Nice to meet you, Eris."

* * *

 _A/N: Hello, viewers new and old! Welcome to my first Pokemon fanfic! If you like, favorite. If you want to see more, updates are twice a week, so follow for that! And if you really like it, post a review telling me so! It really does help give me the drive to keep pushing forwards. And constructive criticism, it just tells me how I can improve. So tell me what you think, please! Make yourself more than a statistic!_

 _I will respond to every review. So post away!_

 _Oh, and thank you for giving my story the time of day. I can tell you, I won't disappoint you here. Expect more action in the future, and expect more character. Those are my specialties. If you liked the action here, trust me, that's not the exception. Action is my strong-suit in writing._

 _So, some may know me from my somewhat popular SU fanfic,_ _The Infinity Link: Bonded by Fate._ _I've put that on hold for now. For those who want information from me, post a review or PM me and I'll answer your questions. Long story short, about 4k words got deleted when my computer died, and I can't work up to courage to try again. Anyways, you want more of my style, this is the place to go now! This is where my passion is._

 _Next time: We're going to meet Eris' parents. No more spoilers! See you then._


	2. Strings of Loyalty

**Strings of Loyalty**

 _A/N: You know how this goes._

"Speech"

" _Telepathy_ "

 _Thoughts_

* * *

\- - -Eris' Perspective- - -

So… my life just got turned on its head.

I mean, I always knew how I was different from other Kirlias and Gardevoirs. Normally we don't get passive powers like that. Even the most empathetic of us have to use _some_ psychic energy to see emotions. I didn't know why it came naturally to me.

Yes, I knew I was special. I just didn't know that I wasn't alone. Let alone that a human of all things would see them, too.

And just my luck, I catch that human in the middle of a psychic surge, one that put my life at risk.

But for now, at least, things had calmed down.

Man. Kelia was quite the enigma.

For now, we just sat and caught our breath. After all that, we needed it.

At least, I needed it. I could only guess about Kelia. The girl of mystery. The only one on earth who's emotions I couldn't read like a book.

After a long wait where we just sat and rested, I got up and extended a hand to Kelia to help her up. She took it.

"So, um…" Kelia said.

Before she could finish her thought, a Luxray burst into the clearing. Its coat was covered in scratches, but its eyes glowed with a passion to kill.

" _Are you kidding me?"_

"Are you kidding me?" we said at the same time.

"Death…" It growled at us. "You may have tricked the rest. But as the leader, you can't trick me. I shall bring death…"

For now, it kept its distance. I realized, that was the same one she tripped over, I could tell by the lines that attached to it. I think it was wary because it had already been hit by my powers. It might stop being wary if it knew I didn't have any psychic energy left whatsoever.

"Don't look it in the eye." Kelia said quickly. "It takes it as a sign of aggression."

" _How do you know that?"_

"Can we talk when we're not in danger for our lives?"

" _Fair, but I don't know why it would help, anyways! It's already aggressive!"_

"Trust me, it would get worse."

" _They what do you want me to do? It still has our backs against a wall. We can run, it's speed is so much higher than ours."_

"We improvise." The Luxray took that moment to lunge at the two of us.

Kelia dived to one side. I dived to the other. It smashed into a tree behind us, giving us precious seconds to think.

"Can't you hit it with any attacks?"

" _I told you, I'm psychically dry!"_

"What about physical ones?"

Luxray attacked again. " _Jump!"_ I yelled, hoping she'd get the message. We both jumped straight up. Luxray snapped to it's left, trying to bite if we tried dodging there. But since we jumped, it missed entirely. I tried to fight back with a scratch or something, but it easily dodged. It was still too fast.

"Don't let it get into your head! Just keep dodging!"

" _Easy for you to say! You're not the one… Wait, that doesn't fit, you're dodging, too. I kind of expected that if I ever got a trainer, they wouldn't-"_

"Left!" she said. But she sent a different message through telepathy. " _Right!"_

We both dodged to the right, leaving the luxray very confused when it tried attacking where she said we would be aloud.

This time, when the Luxray was stunned, she ran to the opposite end of the clearing, so it had two targets to look for. We could split its focus.

"Keep it up! It's already tiring _,"_ Kelia said.

" _That's you plan?"_

"If we tire it out, speed doesn't matter. It's using a lot of energy to do even a single attack. We play the long game."

The Luxray kept striking out, getting angrier and angrier, faster and faster. If it was going to tire, I wished it would do it already. It alternated, attacking one of us then the other. It was in a rage, not caring about strategy. Just attacking and attacking again. At first, I could hardly think. I just dodged and dodged and dodged again, hoping it wouldn't catch me on the next pass.

I started to notice a pattern, though. It jumped back and forth, right at our positions. But even if I couldn't see it in the chaos, I knew he landed behind me, vulnerable for an eighth of a second before it attacked Kelia. I could see the strings of emotion attaching to him. If I could strike him in that one moment…

As he jumped at me, I jumped up and my arm glowed. I learned psycho-cut. And I psycho-cut him to the face.

I thought that would be it. Unfortunately, the attack wasn't strong enough to do anything but make him angrier. He stopped paying attention to Keila and focused me completely.

I kept trying to dodge, the same way I did before. But it was no use. When he wasn't splitting his focus between two targets, he was simply faster than me. He was also stronger, so I couldn't even try to parry his strikes. He never landed a direct hit, I was too fast for that, but he started landing glancing blow after glancing blow. They added up fast.

Kelia, for her part, kept trying to attack it, throwing sticks and stones to try to get its attention over to her. But nothing worked. She yelled to me, "Stop trying to be faster than him. Be smarter than him!"

" _Could you stop with the Zen riddles?"_

"You know what I mean!"

The truth was, I did. For some reason, even though I knew nothing about her, I understood her. It made no sense whatsoever. I hated when things didn't make sense.

The next time it lunged at me, instead of just jumping, which used up so much energy, I twirled out of the way. I loved to dance in my free time, like many Kirlias. So maybe this would work better than what I had done. When I twirled out of the way, I didn't feel the same force of the blow. It still hurt, but this time I could deal with it.

I started dancing around the assault. It attacked in front of me, I went left and let my spinning body deflect its blow. The next time it lunged, attacking with a crunch, when I spiraled out of the way, I hit it with a psycho cut on the way, chipping away at it. The first time I won a one-on one confrontation with it. I danced around it's blows. I had no audience but myself and my challenger. And I would win.

At the edge of my vision, I saw Kelia, slack-jawed at my dancing. I was caught by surprise. I forgot, I did have an audience. I froze with stage fright.

The Luxray lunged once again, and I caught unawares, I couldn't get out of the way in time. Its teeth came closer and closer, in what seemed like slow motion.

Also in slow motion, Kelia ran over and body-slammed it out of the way. The crunch hit her instead of me. She winced. But the Luxray was stunned, it had forgotten her.

"You okay?" she said, genuinely worried. And I knew I could trust her. She had just taken a crunch for me and only cared about my safety. Not only to watch me dance, but in general She wasn't like the trainers mom and dad warned me about. She cared about who I was. She cared if I fainted. Anybody else would've run by now. I think my best friend would've run by now. But her, she didn't only stick by my side, but she was willing to sacrifice her own safety, her fragile human body, just to save me. So, I trusted her.

I closed my eyes and saw the world for what it was. Even when my eyes were closed, I still saw the strings of emotion. I saw the epicenter of hundreds of lines connecting to the leader of the luxray pack. And I saw only one line leading to Kelia. My own. Seeing the world in the way only one other person could see it, I begun to dance.

I danced around it like it was nothing. I spun and twirled like the world was my stage. It could have been for 3 seconds, it could have been for 3 hours. I didn't care. I just danced. It was natural. It was what I was born to do.

Eventually, the luxray started slowing down. My stamina finally outlasted its stamina. We could've run, now. It couldn't keep up anymore. But I wanted to finish this one. I opened my eyes and saw the and started spinning, faster and faster. My arms lit up with a psycho cut.

"HYPERDRILL PSYCHO CUT!"

The Luxray fell and didn't get back up. It was over.

Kelia clapped at my show. I took a playful bow. I was bruised and tired, but I made it. We made it.

Kelia's eyes widened. "Look out!"

I turned quickly. But not quickly enough. The Luxray's fur glowed yellow, it was somehow still up. It shot a thunderbolt straight at me. Straight through my heart.

I had never felt so much pain. It was only for an instant, but it was like the whole world was on fire.

When it ended, somehow, I still stood. My whole body was in pain. But I wasn't going to let that cheap shot take me down.

The Luxray was somewhat surprised I was still standing after that. It growled, then fired a thunderbolt straight up into the air.

I was confused for a second. Wasn't it aiming for me? Soon, though, its motives became crystal clear. Above us, a point of A dome of electricity formed from above and worked its way downwards.

I turned quickly to see Kelia reaching out to me as the dome became a wall between the two of us.

The grass blackened beneath us under the intense electricity. It was just me and this Super-Saiyan luxray.

I picked my bruised body up and prepared to dance with it for the final time.

The final time, because I wouldn't stop until it was gone, or I was..

* * *

I looked on in panic into the lightning dome that held Erin and the Luxray. I saw the lines fighting one another, and I had no idea who was winning. I had to find a way in. I needed to find a way to help.

I found a decent-sized rock to throw in at the Luxray. I didn't even know if it would make it through or if it would be vaporized by the lightning.

The stone, though, hit its mark. The Luxray howled in pain. I saw the line leading to Eris capitalize on it and hit the luxray with a psycho-cut. The purple of it showed even through the barrier of yellow electricity.

Still, the fight raged on. I frantically looked around for something more to throw, to help any way I could. There was nothing big I could find, nothing big enough that it could do damage. Not even any logs. I kept looking. There had to be something. Anything.

I didn't find a thing. Maybe, Eris could do it on her own?

" _H-Help!"_ Eris cried out.

I had run out of time.

* * *

I fought long and hard. I was still psychically drained, and exhausted. The luxray's Also, while the Luxray could touch the walls, I could not. It hopped across the walls like it had magnets for feet, launching blot after bolt of electricity at me. I dodged and danced. I was just one hit from death. Not fainting, death. It would eat me if it got that hit. I dodged and dodged and dodged again. I was in pain, still, from the initial shock. The electricity in the air made my hair stand on end.

But I fought on.

I couldn't hit it, true. But if it couldn't hit me, then we were even.

A rock came in from outside of the arena and bashed the Luxray on the head. Kelia still had my back, even if she couldn't see.

I ran over and capitalized with a psycho-cut!

The electrical arena flickered, and I saw Kelia looking on from the outside. But just as quickly as it dissipated, it was back. It wasn't over yet.

I kept fighting. As it launched bolt after bolt, I launched cut after cut right back at it.

After striking and striking and striking again, the Luxray suddenly stopped. Did it think it hit me? I didn't feel a scratch. I tried to capitalize on its tire, running up and hitting it with a psycho-cut, maybe even finishing it off.

But I couldn't move. Not an inch.

It had hit. It had hit a thunder wave. I was paralyzed. The luxray smiled. It had won. It walked up to me when all I could do was stare back.

"You tried," the Luxray said, smiling an evil smile. "You failed."

" _Help!"_ I screamed out. I didn't want to die. I was supposed to grow up. I was supposed to have my whole of ahead of me. I couldn't But this time, no rocks came there was no way for Eris to get here."

"Looks like your friend won't save you this time."

* * *

From outside the dome, I looked at the inside. I couldn't see anything under the dome of yellow, but I could still see the lines. And the lines had stopped fighting. Meaning Eris couldn't save herself anymore.

I moved before I could stop myself. I ran straight into the dome of electricity. Straight at the epicenter of so many lines across the forest.

* * *

As I lay, paralyzed, Kelia burst through the wall of electricity. Her face was pained from the shock, but determined. The Luxray didn't even see it coming when she kicked it in the face for the second time that day. With a force like that, a psychic determination, it fell. The dome of lightning disintegrated, and this time, it didn't get back up.

After making sure the Luxray wouldn't get back up again, seeing the spirals in its eyes, Kelia ran over to my side. "Oh my Arceus, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm just paralyzed. More importantly, are you okay?" I said.

"Of course I am! I'll be fine. But you, we need to get you to a pokemon center," she said, grabbing my body and picking me up.

Panicked, I used what little strength I had to push her away. It didn't work, but at least she hesitated. " _Not there! Anywhere but there!"_

She looked at me, confused. "What's wrong? You're hurt. You need help."

I struggled to get up. " _You don't get it. I'm wild. Pokemon like me don't go to pokemon centers. If we heal, we do it on our own."_

"What do you want me to do, see your bruised body and just do nothing?"

" _No. Okay, you can pick me up, as long as you don't take me to the pokemon center. Pick me up, I'll show you where we're going. My village has some berries that can help heal me."_

She didn't seem sure, but she did as I asked, picking me up. It just reminded me she could be trusted. She cared about what I wanted. My parents always said humans couldn't be trusted, but they couldn't mean her, could they? She was loyal, and kind, and-

What was I saying?I shook those thoughts out of my head. I shouldn't have been thinking like that. I liked my village, I didn't want to leave it, even for someone like Kelia.

" _My village is where the group of where the group of thick, cyan lines are off in the distance."_ I said, pointing in the direction.

"Are you sure you'll be fine?"

" _I've survived worse."_

"I just want you to be okay."

We drifted into silence as we walked.

I could tell Kelia was worried about me. I didn't need a window into her emotions to see that.

" _Hey, Kelia?" I said. "Why did you do all that for me? All the trainers I've seen, the ones that come through here and catch all of the pokemon, even the ones with the closest bonds would take an attack for them_."

She shrugged. "I just knocked it out of the way. Anybody would've done it if they could."

" _But when you jumped into the dome of electricity? And_ _when we were surrounded? You kicked the leader to the side and put yourself in danger. I could have teleported away, you know that_?"

She paused. "I thought you said that you had practically no psychic energy left."

" _That's different. Every psychic pokemon has their specialty. Mine is teleportation. It costs me practically nothing, kinetically speaking._ "

"…So you're saying you could've teleported away at any time? Then why didn't you do that during the battle?" Kelia said, a bit angry.

" _Careful! You don't want to trigger another surge!"_

Her anger morphed into confusion. "…What?"

I was somewhat confused, too. " _A psychic surge. You're telling me you were never taught about surges?"_

"I grew up without any other psychics near me. The only things I know are the things I taught myself."

" _Wow. That… could've ended badly. You're lucky you met somebody like me. I'm not the best at explaining, but I'll give it a shot. A psychic surge happens when a psychic undergoes huge amounts of stress. I thought it was just Gardevoirs and the like, but I guess it also applies to humans. It often follows a death, or a huge traumatic moment. Man, they suck. You think a normal emotional meltdown's bad? Try dealing with one with the ability to rip apart the fabric of space-time."_

" _They're the reason why all our kind were taught to let our emotions flow. It might seem counter-intuitive, but it's not. A long time ago, our kind tried to restrain our emotions, so we would never have those kind of meltdowns, but it always ended up having the opposite effect. Those who restrained their emotions would pent their negative emotions deep inside. Their animosity would build and build, and then when it finally released the results would be catastrophic."_

" _So instead, we started letting our emotions flow. Now, while we might get angry, it rarely gets bad enough to have a surge anymore as long as everybody's honest about how they feel. So here we are, known as the pokemon of emotion."_

I realized how long I had been speaking. " _I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ramble."_

Kelia shook her head quickly. "No, no, Your history's fascinating. I suppose I could learn a thing or two from you guys, just letting my emotions flow. Not doing that's what got me here in the first place."

" _You let your emotions pent up?"_

"In my society, I hardly had a choice."

" _I'm sorry."_

"Don't be. That's behind me now. I can finally be free."

The conversation drifted into silence for a few seconds when I didn't respond. I was lost in thought over her sentiments. _A society where I couldn't express myself in any way I wanted…_ I thought. Where I couldn't smile when I was happy. Where I couldn't show it if I was angry at somebody. A place where I would hold a grudge.

"By the way," Kelia said, "we kind of got off on that side conversation, but why _didn't_ you just teleport away when you were in danger?"

I smiled. That was an easy question. " _I would've had to leave you behind_."

She didn't respond to that. When I looked up at her from her arms, her face looked off into the distance. Probably deep in thought as I had been.

" _You never answered my question, either,"_ I said. _"Why did you go through all that trouble to help me when you had plenty of chances to escape?"_

"You already answered it yourself. 'I would've had to leave you behind.'"

We walked for the last minute of the way to the village. But although it was silence, it was a silence only known by the closest of friends.

* * *

A shadowy figure walked into the clearing the battle had just taken place in. He had been standing there the whole time, watching the battle unfold. The defeated luxray lay in the middle of a perfect circle of blackened grass. A few blades of grass around the area still lightly burned. The ground inside and outside of the circle of black ash was trampled. Footprints lead away into the forest beyond.

The figure walked over to the defeated luxray. A laser of red light connected the figure and the pokemon. The luxray turned into red light and filtered into the pokeball sitting in his hand. The pokeball wavered for a few seconds before clicking into place.

He turned his view to the pair of footprints leading into the forest. The figure smiled and followed them deeper into the forest.

He wanted to meet the trainer who could beat the alpha of a pack of luxray, even when it went into hyperdrive. And with just a Kirlia. The trainer willing to leap into a dome of electricity to save their pokemon. Out of bravery or stupidity, he didn't know.

The trainer followed the footprints leading away from the fight deeper into the forest.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm aware the learn set of Kirlia doesn't match up to the story exactly. But I'm trying to tell a story, not get caught up in the details. So if Kirlia can't learn psycho-cut, only Gallade, I'm fine with bending it slightly. After this, I'll try to stick closer to the source material, but I can't make any promises!_

 _Somebody asked about my policy regarding OCs, so to stop endless others from asking, too, I should say it here: you can send your characters in all you'd like. I can't say for sure I'll include them, but if I like them, I'll maybe have Kelia fight them, or at least have them have a cameo role. If I really like them, they might even have a big place in the story! But it's all done on a case-by-case basis._

 _By the way, keep posting reviews! That's what drives me forwards. I love to see people as people, not statistics. I love interacting with viewers. If you want to see more, favorite, follow, or both. And you know, if you aren't incredibly antisocial like me, tell your friends to check it out, too._

 _Next time: We're meeting Eris' family. Sorry, probably no fight scenes that span the whole chapter. I know, you're so disappointed. That'll probably be only an occasional thing. Actual character, what a nightmare! Anyways, then, we'll see who the figure that watched the fight truly was… See you guys in 2-3 days. (I'm posting quicker than what it says on the box since it's the beginning of the story. It'll get to it being twice a week, but it's going faster for now while I have the drive)_


	3. Strings of Family

**Strings of Family**

This wasn't what I expected.

When Eris said "Pokemon village," I expected something tiny, some wood huts in the middle of the woods at most.

I mean… they were technically huts, and they were made of wood.

But… it was a bustling town. No, a city! There was something like a hundred Gardevoirs, Gallades, Kirlias, and Raltses roaming around just in front of me, with who knew how many throughout. They weren't living in a clearing in the forest they called home, but living in a grid of streets connected to row after row of houses. There were restaurants, businesses, and schools! Why hadn't I ever heard of this? This was insane! It was bigger than my own town by a long shot!

A few Gardevoirs passed by me as I stood there, my mouth gaping, but they walked right past like I wasn't there.

Eris didn't even react to the sight before us. I guess it was normal for her this town, why would she be surprised? But… weren't pokemon supposed to be like, less advanced than humans? I know they could be as smart or smarter than humans, like in the case of Alakazam, but humans were still the ones who rose to the top, right? We formed complex societies spanning the globe! If they had cities like this why weren't they equally dominant? This, it was… wow.

" _What are you stopping for_?" Eris said.

"It's nothing," I said.

" _What's wrong?"_

I realized how evasive I sounded. "Oh, nothing's wrong, per say. It's just, I didn't expect a massive city like this! I haven't seen anything like it!"

Kirlia's paralyzed body attempted a shrug. _"Oh, we keep to ourselves. I think there's some psychic barrier our ancestors set up that keeps out unwanted visitors. Something like that, I wasn't totally paying attention in class. If I didn't tell you about it, this'd just look like more forest to you. That's how I understand it, anyways."_

"…Sure." So many thought raced in my mind, but I tried to focus on the task at hand. "Where's your house?"

" _It's just down that street."_

She tried to put on a brave face, but I could tell she was hurting from the battle.

I knew the feeling. I hadn't said anything, but even though my injuries were nothing compared to hers, I still stung from the crunch, even more so from the wall of lightning.

Eris pointed at a house. _"That's my house. My parents should be in there. I think we have a Cherri berry or two in the medicine cabinet."_

"What about your other injuries?"

She lightly shook her head. _"I'll be fine by tomorrow morning. We get hurt like that all the time."_

I shivered. I didn't like the idea of putting my life at risk like that all the time. This was why I didn't want to become a pokemon trainer.

I knocked on the door and stood there, waiting. Of course, my stupid brain started imagining what my parents would think if a Gardevoir showed up at their doorstep holding my limp body.

They'd freak out. They might even attack the Gardevoir. _Maybe I should step back think this through…_ I thought.

Before I could do anything, the door opened to an elegant Gardevoir. She was… she was beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous. I had heard stories, but to see one up close, it was something else. I had trouble even keeping my composure.

Then, as she took everything in, me and Eris' body, and that grace transformed into rage. It was elegant rage, but it didn't make it any less terrifying. " _What did you do to my daughter?"_

Pretty people can be pretty scary, too. I was rendered speechless.

Kelia said, " _Hi mom. So, funny story, actually…"_

* * *

" _You did_ _what_ _?"_ Kelia's mom said.

" _I told you, we fought an alpha Luxray."_

" _And you managed to get captured by this… thing?"_

I was a bit insulted at being called a thing, but I let it slide. I said, "Of course not! I didn't-"

She cut me off. _"Don't bother lying to me! You're telling me that_ my _daughter willingly fight an alpha without being forced to by your magic pokeballs!?"_

"What!? No, I-

" _Come on, what tricks did you use to catch her? Did you catch her in a net first? Did you beat her to a pulp with one of your other slaves and stuff her into a ball?_

"I-"

" _If you don't release her this instant, I'll-"_

I tried something different. _"Could you please let me finish!"_

" _You don't deserve a chance…"_ She trailed off. " _Wait a second."_

" _Yes, I have telepathic abilities. I'm an empath, to be precise. Just so you know, your daughter saved me by her own volition, and I'm here to return her."_

She was a bit shocked by the revelation. " _I… oh. D-don't think just because you're an empath means I trust your silver tongue any more than I did before!"_

" _Then maybe you should trust us because I'm telling you to, mom!"_ Kelia said. _"She. Didn't. Capture. Me. I'm a free pokemon. She's returning me home."_

She hesitated for a few seconds. _"She still put you in danger, didn't she? You expect me to think she had nothing to do with your condition?"_

" _I put-"_ I trailed off. This telepathy was giving me a headache. Eris was right about our telepathy being different, it was draining saying even a few sentences to the Gardevoir. "I put myself in danger. She didn't have to do anything, but she saved me. I didn't ask her to do anything. It's as simple as that."

Eris' mom was more confused than angry at that point. She wanted to be angry so badly, but she had no reason to. Eventually, she just sighed. " _Just… just get out of my sight_."

I bowed to her and set Eris in her hands. "I'm sorry."

I turned and walked away. What a sorry way to say goodbye. After all that, it was over. I wondered, what was next? I couldn't go back to my hometown, I couldn't start a journey without money, I couldn't stay here. I started walking out of the village. But I couldn't ignore the string in the corner of my vision. The only one that connected to me.

* * *

I could do nothing to stop her as she walked away. I was still paralyzed.

I couldn't do anything without a Cherri berry. So, I formulated a plan. The best way to get to Kelia.

 _I promise I won't give up,_ I thought.

And so, I pretended to give up. I put on my best 'I feel awful' face. "Mom…" I said, in our own language now that we had no need to speak in telepathy. "Do we have any Cherri berries?"

Mom's distain for Kelia faded. "Of course, honey! I'm sorry I didn't get one any sooner!"

She set me down on the couch and ran over to the medicine cabinet. I couldn't see her, but I saw the lines that connected to her, giving me a general grasp of where she was. "We'll talk about this later, you know," Mom said.

"I know. Can we wait until I can move again?"

"Of course, of course." She ran back into the room. I opened my mouth, and she placed the berry in it.

The result was near-instantaneous. I felt the feeling return to my limbs. And man, did I feel stiff. I leapt up from the couch and cracked my bones. I felt a rush of power! I think the EXP I got from knocking out the Luxray was catching up to me. I did a little twirl in place in joy.

My happiness faded. I had a job to do. I just got past step one. _Focus, Eris._ I thought.

"Well, I'm glad you're feeling better," mom said.

I didn't want to betray my mom. She was in the wrong here, yes, but she was a good person, wasn't she? She always wanted what was best for me.

I tried to shake those thoughts out of my head. I made a promise that I would return to her, and every minute I wasted here Kelia might have been in danger. She might surge again if kept unchecked.

"Can you tell me exactly what happened?" Mom said. "You were attacked by a Luxray, you said? How did that happen in the first place?"

I was tempted to tell her, to try to explain that Kelia saved my life. But I knew Mom's view on humans. I knew it was time to escape. "Hold up," I said. "Could I just grab some water before this? I'm really thirsty after the battle." I knew, it was a weak excuse, but I was on a self-imposed tight timeframe. But it worked. Mom let me go grab some water from the kitchen.

I walked in, and I had every intention to just teleport away. I knew I could explain myself later, I wouldn't be gone forever. Mom was in the wrong, here. I needed to teleport away, Kelia with her surge going on needed me more than she did.

But no matter how much I tried to convince myself, I hesitated. I knew I needed to leave, I had to find her, but… I would never forgive myself if I left without even giving it a shot. I might've had a chance to change Mom's mind. I could convince her Kelia wasn't a bad person. My mom was a brilliant individual, surely, if I talked instead of mindlessly running, I could get her to listen.

Without running away, I walked back into the living room with a few Oran berries for healing and a cup of water.

I sighed. "Mom, we need to talk," I said.

She cocked her head. "Well, of course we do. I want to hear what happened in the-"

"No, not about the forest. It's about what just happened at the door. You turned Kelia away when she was just trying to help."

"Humans are nothing but trouble," she said.

I took a deep breath. "But what if this one was different?"

She chuckled. "Come on, Eri. I've told you hundreds of times, Humans aren't like us. They're power-hungry, greedy, malicious. Don't joke about defending them."

I winced, but held my ground. "I'm not joking, mom! That human, she's special! She cares about me, and you turned her away!

Mom's smile faded as she stared at me, baffled. The seconds seemed to last a thousand years. "You're not joking."

I winced. "But, she's not like the others you've told me about! She didn't try to catch me, she tried to run away from me, first! She wasn't trying to trick me, she was scared, like me." I wished I could tell her about the strings, the real reason I approached her. Nobody knew I could see them, they'd think I was crazy. She'd think I was making it up if I tried telling her I could see them for my whole life, and she could, too.

But Mom, she was angrier than I had ever seen her. "You've been suckered in by her mind games, Eris. She was trying to test your 'loyalty' before enslaving you."

"But she dropped me off here! What could she have to gain by doing that?"

"It's all a part of her plan, I'm sure. Besides, didn't you say you got injured trying to save her? She hurt you."

"Don't twist what happened. You don't know the whole story! She was scared, I was just trying to help. She didn't mean to awaken the Luxray."

"You're telling me she's the one who awakened it in the first place? And you still trust her!? You act as if she's another Kirlia!"

"Well, maybe she was like one! She wasn't the emotionless drone you always tell me about! She had feelings! I had to help her, she was undergoing a psychic surge!"

Mom's anger melted away, if only slightly. Finally, a chink in her armor. "She… she was surging? For a psychic to surge, she must have been through a lot…"

"Do you understand? She was already just recovering, and you turned her away when we could have helped!"

And suddenly, the anger came back to full force. "Humans are irredeemable. Letting her into the house? Helping her? Are you mad? She's a _human_ , she probably deserved what came to her."

"Don't say that! You know what a surge feels like, does anybody deserve that? What's with your hatred of humans? What did they ever do to you?"

"All they ever do is capture our kind. They use us as tools even though we're just as smart as them. They capture us, use our power, our strength, then take credit for being 'such a good trainer,' and unless you're that trainer's signature pokemon, we're left with nothing. The other five, we're expendable. Whenever they find a new pokemon, one they like better than you, they stuff you in a box, never to see the light of day again."

She'd said something similar a few times before, but… something sounded different this time. It didn't sound like she was warning me of a far off danger. It sounded like a personal experience.

"What happened to you, mom?"

She covered her mouth, realizing she said too much. She looked at the floor, and didn't say another word.

I made up my mind. "I'm sorry, mom. I'm sorry about whatever happened to you. But I want you to know, she's not the same. Is every Gallade like Dad was? No. So not every human was like whoever you were describing. That human you've been slandering, she has a name. Her name is Kelia. And she's different. She's not the kind of person you've been talking about. She cares what happens to me. She risked her own fragile human body to save mine more than once during the battle. She took a crunch for me. She jumped through a wall of electricity and endured the pain to _save my life_. So if you want to tell me all humans are evil, you're wrong." I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about what might have happened to you. I really am. But right now, I'm going after her. I'm going to follow her, wherever she's going next. She needs a friend."

I walked past my mom and towards the door. I expected her to stop me. To tell me I was wrong. To tell me I had much better ways to spend my life than this whim. To tell me I was making the wrong choice. To tell me she would miss me. To tell me to _stop._

But she just stood there as I walked by.

As I reached for the door handle, Mom finally spoke up.

"You remind me of a younger me…"

I turned and saw her staring wistfully at me. "Go on, Eri. I can't stop you. Just promise me something, okay?" She started tearing up. "If she ever does anything to hurt you, you run. You come back here, okay? I care about you, no matter what you do. I don't want something to happen. If you went out and never came back… I… I wouldn't… I couldn't forgive myself…"

I ran over and hugged her. "I promise I won't forget you, mom."

She let her tears hit the top of my head. "I know."

"Now, go to this Kelia. Go to your trainer. No, go to your friend. We all leave the nest eventually, so thanks for being here to say goodbye. If Kelia's a good friend, she'll help you grow big and strong like you've always wanted to be. I'm sure she'll be better than mine was to me. And remember that even if she isn't, I'll always be there for you."

She wiped a few tears from her eyes, then let go of our hug. "Goodbye, Mom." I said.

"Goodbye, Eri."

I ran out the door before I could stop myself from leaving.

* * *

I wandered the town. Nobody even batted an eye at me. They all thought I couldn't see them back. Maybe they couldn't see me at all, either. If I told the press, I would be famous. _The Girl who showed the world it's other side._ But I couldn't betray Eris like that. It wouldn't be right. So, I just wandered the streets, seeing the complex society only I would ever see. The strings were so vivid, here. So fluid. There was little hatred. It was just as Eris said. We could learn something from them. I wondered, how did this city work? Did they have politics? Did they marry? How was it similar to our cities? How was it different? Were there other cities like it?

And what the heck was I supposed to with my life?

I reached the city limits. The complex society stopped, and the untamed forest started again. I sighed. I guess my best option really was going back home and getting a normal job or something. I sure wasn't cut out to be a pokemon trainer. The first thing I do when I befriend a pokemon is put her life in danger. I guessed working in a factory or something wouldn't be so bad.

I saw a twitch in the corner of my vision. The one string I was purposefully ignoring. The one I had left behind. The one that connected to me. It was coming back. She was coming back.

A part of me wanted to run away. I didn't want to hurt her more. But I knew she would just find me again. It would be a little difficult to hide if she had a radar that consistently pointed to me.

I turned and saw Eris running at me, full force. I smiled. Maybe I didn't screw _everything_ up, huh?

When she reached me, she was gasping for breath. "I'm not going anywhere, you know." I said.

Between gasps of breath, she said, " _Oh, yes you are. You're my ticket to see the world. You're going somewhere, and I'm coming with you._ "

I couldn't say I wasn't a little taken aback. "A-are you sure? You almost just died!"

" _But I didn't die!"_

"But you did!"

" _But I didn't!"_

"We're going in circles! Look, if you want to be somebody's pokemon, you could do better than me. I don't really want to be a trainer, anyways. You go back to your life."

" _And what, ignore the strings that connect us? Don't lie, I know you want to explain this as much as I do. And I've always wanted to leave, to go on an adventure. That fight against the Luxray, I said it was nothing? I lied. That was the best moment in my life. Yeah, I got beat up a lot. Yeah, I almost died. But those moments when I was dancing around its blows, when you tricked the group of them into fighting each other, when I first learned psycho-cut and when you jumped into the electricity and finally finished it off, I felt a rush like I never had before. How about this: I don't want to join you. I am joining you, whether you like it or not. If you want, you could work at a factory and I'd follow you. But I'm here."_

 _Wow. Kirlias really are as loyal as they say,_ I thought. "Are you sure you're fine with being put in danger again?" I said.

Eris sighed a long, really loud sigh. " _Were you_ _listening_ _to that rant? Yes. A million times yes. Let's go on an adventure!"_ She held out her hand to me.

I finally gave in. I couldn't go against that face. "Okay, Eris. I can't say no to you." I took her hand.

I didn't know our goal. Maybe to become the very best, like no one ever was? I guessed we would see.

For now, I needed a few pokeballs. I wouldn't be a great trainer with only one Pokemon, would I?

As I stepped into the woods, trying to find a town, a shadowy figure stepped in front of me.

I jumped backwards. Kelia instinctively jumped in front of me for protection.

The figure stood there, but it didn't attack. A Houndoom stood by his side. It seemed to be sniffing a trail, one that lead straight to us. The line connecting the two of them was a dull gray. I didn't like him in the slightest. So, I kept my guard up. "Who are you?" I said.

"You defeated an Alpha Luxray even when it entered a primal rage," he said.

I steeled myself. "How the hell do you know that?"

"I was in the area. It was hard to miss."

"And you didn't help!?"

"You seemed to do just fine on your own."

While we argued, Eris' face remained calm. Through our string, I could see the anger radiating off of her.

"We almost died!" I said.

"Well, she did," he said, pointing to Eris. "You're the one chose to jump into the dome."

I shook in anger. "Are you just here to taunt us? What the hell do you want?"

"Isn't it simple? I want to fight you. What else would a pokemon trainer want?" He gestured towards his Houndoom.

Their connection was practically nothing. I needed to put this trainer in his place.

And yet…

" _I don't want to make you to fight while you're still weak from the last fight."_ I told Eris.

" _Are you an idiot?"_

" _I'm sorry! I shouldn't have suggested you could-"_

" _Of course we're fighting him! You see that grey line, don't you? We need to show him just what he's doing."_

I took a deep breath. _"Okay."_ I nodded decisively.

"Hello? Anybody home?" he said.

"We'll fight you." I said. "If we win, you stop ignoring your pokemon."

That got a reaction out of him. "What? Ignoring my pokemon!? I'm good to my pokemon, how dare you!?"

"I'm an empath. I can tell you're lying."

"You're a what? Like, a lie detector? Because I wasn't lying!"

"No, it meansI can sense your emotions. You might believe you're telling the truth, but I can see the bond between you two. And you're _definitely_ not good to your pokemon."

His face was hidden by his cloak, but he was angry. "Fine, you liar. If you somehow beat me, I'll not only give you your prize money, I'll _be a better trainer_ or whatever. But with a bet like that, I want something from you."

"Sure, I'll back it up! I…oh, crap." I said. I patted myself down. "I… don't have any money. I guess I can't ask for the money in return. I don't have anything to give you. And I'm already good to _my_ pokemon, so you can't ask that of me."

His emotions flared, but his body betrayed nothing. "I don't want money. I have plenty of that. I'm willing to give you some in return. But you have something I want. In return… well, I'm travelling the world, searching for the strongest of pokemon. And that Kirlia you have there is special. Not every Kirlia can defeat a Luxray, more powerful than it in every way. And guess what? It's not yours. You don't have any pokeballs. Technically, it's still wild. So, if I knock it out, I get to keep it. You're still so cocky?"

I hesitated, but Kirlia sent a telepathic message: " _You're on!_ "

The figure turned its head to Eris. "And she speaks! So confident, too. You're very powerful, aren't you? I'm sure you'll be a great asset to my team." He spoke like he had already won. I clenched my fists. There was no way I could get out of fighting now.

It was too late to back down. It was only my second battle and I was risking her life again. With the battles progressing at this rate, I was going to be your average Shonen anime protagonist.

I stood behind Kirlia as he stood behind his Houndoom. We stared each other down for a few seconds, each waiting for the other to make their first move.

And it all started at once.

"Eris, slash!"

"Randell, bite!"

The combatants sprinted at one another and attacked and the battle begun.

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry about the upload gap, I'll try to be better. I was busy playing Super Mario Odyssey over the last few days. And before that, I had homework. Anyways, it should get back to bi-weekly now that I'm a bit less busy, so, I hope you enjoyed!_

 _You know, I could use some cover art. Not asking anybody to make it or something, but you know, if anybody were willing, PM me or something._

 _Your uploadly reminder to post a review, and maybe fave/follow, too. I'll be brief this time. Look, I just like making personal connections with my viewers. So, um… do that if you haven't. You know, or if you have. Good and bad reviews are welcome, they're what push me forewards, either to keep making good content, or to improve myself._

 _Next time: Eris and Kelia vs. The trainer of mystery. That's when the overarching moral dilemma, and maybe the main plot, finally begins. See you guys then._


	4. Strings of Mystery

Strings of Mystery

\- - -Eris- - -

I rushed the houndoom. Right off the bat, I had the advantage. My fairy was super-effective against his dark, while his dark was only neutral to me. Still, I was cautious. He might've been at a type disadvantage, but that didn't mean everything.

I weaved around his bite and slashed him in the side. For now, I was just using normal-type moves. It was immune to psychic, of course. I could use a fairy-type move, but I would need a decent leadup to do so. So I was stuck using my weaker normal-types.

The houndoom growled. It lunged at me again. Yet, its attacks were so slow. So telegraphed. Maybe I was used to the overwhelming might of the Luxray, but this? He was easy. I tried telling myself it was all a trick, he was going to pull off some insane strategy and swiftly take me out once I got cocky. But after dodging attack after attack, I couldn't hold it in for any longer. I chuckled. Then I burst out laughing. This was nothing! He thought he could beat me with this thing? I beat an alpha Luxray! The houndoom didn't attack while I laughed. It stared at me, baffled. It was used to terrifying its prey. When I wasn't scared, it didn't have a backup plan. The mystery trainer got angrier and angrier. Which just made them fight worse and worse.

The houndoom lunged again, but it didn't change its strategy at all. Lunge, Crunch, get hit with a slash to the side. I hardly had to try to avoid his attacks. Their synergy was awful. Their fighting abilities were just about as bad as their bond. For a battle with such big stakes, this was nothing.

I spoke in the language of Pokemon: Poki. "Next time, Houndoom, I would stop focusing on raw strength and fear and invest in my personal best stat: VERSITILITY!"

With that line, I used disarming voice. And it was super effective.

And just like that, the battle was over.

Kelia shrugged. "I think this means I win."

He clenched his fists. "…How?"

She shrugged. "You kind of suck at this. You expect that having a strong pokemon is enough? You can't win without team synergy."

His anger faded. He chuckled. "Are you kidding me? You think this is over already? You've only defeated one of my pokemon."

Kelia stared for a few seconds. "…Yeah. That was the deal."

"No, it wasn't. A traditional battle is at _least_ a 3v3.

"What are you saying? I don't-"

" _I can take them."_ I said.

Kelia wasn't surprised I said it this time. That didn't stop her from trying to stop me. "Don't push yourself too hard, Eris. You've already won. You know the consequences if you lose because of this…"

" _As if it's going to be hard to beat this loser again."_

"Could you stop leaving me out on half your conversation?" the other trainer said.

" _No_ ," I said.

"No," Kelia said.

"Then could you take me remotely seriously?"

" _No," I said._

"No," Kelia said.

That seemed to anger him more than anything else, us ignoring his 'power.' "How about this? If you beat my next pokemon, I'll give you five times the money. 50,000 P."

"F-fifty thousand?"

"I told you, money isn't an object for me."

I didn't know how much that was, exactly. We used a whole different currency in my city, after all. But Kelia seemed to think it was a lot. But she still didn't say yes on the spot.

" _Why are you hesitating? We can take him, can't we?"_

"What if he has something else up his sleeve? What if he's trying to lull us into a false sense of security?"

" _Then why would you start with a crappy pokemon first? If he really wanted me and did have a better pokemon, he wouldn't have started with a performance like that. This guy's all talk."_ I directed my telepathy to the other trainer. " _Come on, let me trash your next one."_

At this point, Kelia couldn't stop me from fighting. I could sense her frustration, but it didn't stop me. The angered trainer sent out his next pokemon. An Infernape. I immediately noticed something was different. Their line. It wasn't a dull grey. It shined a bright silver. I'd only seen that color a few times before. It was one of the closest bonds I'd ever seen. Honestly, it made me a bit angrier at him. He obviously knew how to take care of a pokemon, Yet he still treated his houndoom like dirt.

"The hell…?" Kelia said, obviously noting what I saw.

"What is it now?" said the other trainer, annoyed again. He was very prone to mood swings, wasn't he?

"Um… nothing. This…" she looked for an excuse. It wouldn't be good for us if we told him what was really going on. "How is this a fair fight? I only have a Kirlia, you have a fully evolved Infernape!"

"It didn't seem to faze you when you fought the Luxray."

"We were literally fighting for our lives!"

"Then maybe you should've made sure I was playing fair before you stepped into this."

"Are you _trying_ to be the bad guy here?"

"Infernape, use flamethrower!"

The attack caught me completely off guard. It scored a direct hit on me. It blasted me so hard I sailed into a tree at the other end of the battlefield. I was still upright, but I had taken heavy damage.

"That's not fair!" Kelia said.

"Where's your confidence now, huh? Do it again, Infernape!"

It fired another shot at me. I managed a dodge this time, but the residual heat coming off it made me sweat.

Enough talk. I ran to get closer. He clearly had the advantage at a distance. Despite being a Kirlia, I much preferred using physical attacks. I sparred with my old friend all the time. Anyways, if I kept at a distance, I would lose the standoff.

I charged in fast, sprinting across the clearing. I didn't have the element of surprise, but if I got in close, his fighting-type moves would have a disadvantage on me, while it would only take a few psycho-cuts to take him down.

"Again!" he said. The flamethrower blasted out again. I dodged to the right. The flamethrower weaved in midair and homed in on me. In a split second, I jumped, twisting backwards. It singed my dress, but I was otherwise uninjured. I landed on the other end of the flamethrower and kept running.

"Jump!" Kirlia yelled.

" _You think?"_ I said as I continued to run at the Infernape. Just as I was about to reach it, it jumped up into a nearby tree and swung across the battlefield. I ran after it, but swinging across the trees, it was faster than me.

"Hit it with a psychic or something!" Kelia said.

" _No way. I'm awful at ranged attacks."_

"It's wide open!"

" _Well, it isn't any more."_

It was true. The Infernape reached the other end of the arena and prepared to attack again.

"Who has terrible team synergy _now?_ " the mystery trainer said.

Okay, this guy was getting on my nerves. I rushed the Infernape again, definition of insanity be darned. It fired a flamethrower at me as I ran towards it. I skated around the flamethrower and just kept running at full speed. It didn't even have time to sweep it this time. It had nothing on me. Once again, as I reached it, it jumped into a tree and skated to the other end of the arena. This time, I was prepared. I jumped after it, trying to intercept it in midair… but it was just too agile. My psycho-cut missed completely. This wasn't working. I needed a better plan…

Okay, I knew what to do. I just needed to reach him one last time and I could take him down.

* * *

\- - -Kelia- - -

Why wasn't Eris listening to me? She wasn't having this problem yesterday! No matter what I said, she wouldn't listen. Couldn't she see that what she was doing _wasn't working?_

"Just use your ranged attacks already!"

" _I have a plan!"_

"Listen to me! Just wait for one second! We need a better strategy, he's up to something!"

" _I can cut down the trees, that way it won't be able to get away. You see, I already have a plan!"_ Without any more warning, she rushed again.

The Infernape charged a flamethrower again. There was nothing I could do, Eris wasn't listening to my battle advice, anyways. I'd only watched battles for years in awe, studied them for the time I would finally get my first one. It's not like I was qualified to help. I watched closely anyways. Maybe I could still help. I saw Kelia prepare a dodge as she ran. She hobbled to the right slightly. If I saw it, that meant the Infernape probably did, too. Yet despite the obvious tells on Eris' part, when the flame was sent outwards, she still narrowly dodged it. Eris just kept running. Maybe I was overestimating my opponent?

Then, I saw a ripple run down the silver string connecting the mystery trainer and the Infernape. One Eris didn't seem to notice. I saw a flash of his face. The mystery trainer was grinning beneath their cloak.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

My eyes darted back to the Infernape, and it was still firing its flamethrower sweeping it towards Kelia again.

Kelia saw it coming, of course, and was ready to jump.

I saw the flame angling upwards.

If she jumped, she would jump right into it.

The string between us turned jagged with my fear.

" _Duck!"_ I yelled through telepathy.

By the time I said it, she was already in midair.

The flame was sent directly at her body.

She finally realized what was going on.

She couldn't get out of the way in time.

The attack was devastating. It hit like a jet engine or something. Her forward momentum was halted and she flew into a tree on the edge of the clearing, which promptly set itself on fire.

I felt a sudden pain at the same time the flamethrower connected to Eris. It wasn't awful, but it was a dull pain across my body. My whole body went tender like I had a mild sunburn throughout. I stepped back, looking for an assailant, but there was none. And as the flame ended, so did my pain. As soon as it started, it was back to normal. Did I just feel some portion of what she had felt?

I saw the aftermath of the hit. Eris lay in front of the flaming tree. I thought she was knocked out. I saw an oran berry in her mouth. I didn't know when she got it, but it was keeping her from fainting then and there. Though, even if she wasn't knocked out, she still struggled to stay upright.

"Stop the battle!" I yelled. My mysterious pain could wait, Kirlia needed to get out of there.

And despite the situation, he acted as if I never asked him to stop. "Infernape," he said. "Use close combat."

Why wasn't he stopping? Even if he was oblivious to the pain I was experiencing, he could see Eris was already defeated! I told him to stop! Why wasn't he doing so?

The Infernape approached Eris' stunned body, a grin on its face. This wasn't right. I couldn't let Eris get knocked out, not like this.

Arceus, why couldn't I stop myself from blindly rushing in and taking a hit for her? Weren't trainers supposed to sit by in the sidelines? Wasn't being knocked out a part of the battle? Despite that, I was already running full speed to try to intercept the attack. And the worst part was, I wasn't going to make it. I was by the sidelines. She was off at the other end of the arena.

Something… happened, then. Something I couldn't explain. As I ran, it was as if I split in two. One copy of myself still ran, in a way that would never make it in time. But the other me, encased in a cyan hue, ignored the laws of physics. It ran faster than any human normally could and jumped in between the Kirlia and Infernape just as it swung its first punch.

The punch, the close combat, connected with the clone and it shattered to dust. The Infernape was stunned.

I don't know whether it would've fired another punch, but I wasn't risking it. The distraction gave me the time to rush in and get in between Eris and the Infernape.

"Stop the battle!" I repeated.

"What the hell?" The other trainer said.

"I told you, I'm a psychic," I said. To me, it was huge, but he didn't have to know that. Beyond that, I was furious. "But you, you deliberately disobeyed the rules of a trainer dual. 'Either trainer may stop the dual at any time if they wish to forfeit.' Ever heard that one before? I said stop, it was clear why I said it, and you didn't stop the battle."

"Hold up, I've never heard of that. How was I supposed to know to stop?"

"The other trainer cries out to stop the battle when their pokemon is in danger and you do nothing? That's how you know, you do the fricking right thing! And of course, you haven't heard of it. Why am I not surprised? You know what, I could report you for this."

He was flustered. "Don't be rash, here…"

"Rash? I'm just trying to protect my pokemon from someone like you!"

"C-can we put this behind us? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I thought you were trying to trick me!"

I sighed. "Fine, I'll put it behind me. I'd like my money, please."

"W-what?"

"You disobeyed the rules of the battle. That means I automatically get the victory."

Now, unlike everything else I said, this was a lie. He had broken the rules, but in truth, the penalty would just be a battle reset, and I know we would lose at that point.

"Stop right there. I've broken rules before, they didn't make me lose everything for it!"

Dang it. He wasn't that dumb. "Well, it's not a rule, but it's a formality most choose to follow. A code of honor, if you will." That was partly true. 'Most' didn't follow any code at all, but in this specific situation, most would concede defeat if only because of basic human decency. They almost beat up a defensless pokemon when the other party had already conceded defeat!

He stared at us for a few seconds. And any semblance of kindness he might've had faded away. He had the nerve to smile. "Isn't it obvious by now that I'll do anything for that Kirlia? Getting back on track, weren't you trying to concede defeat a moment ago?"

I figured that would be the case. After everything else, I didn't think he would follow some guidelines to get his grimy hands on Eris.

"Not a chance, buddy," I said. "If you don't have the human decency to stop now, I'm not stopping now.

He kept smiling. "Then I guess I'll have to pummel you to the ground again."

* * *

\- - -Eris- - -

I was numb. How had I missed such an obvious move? Of course, he would aim high to catch me. Why did I do the same thing again? I ate all of my oran berries, now. I was in fighting condition again. But could I really do anything?

I got a telepathic message from Eris while I worked my way into position. " _Are you okay, Eris?"_

" _Yeah. I'm fine."_ But my heart wasn't into it.

" _You can't give up now! I know things look bleak-"_

I was overcome with anger, and I wasn't afraid to show it. _"Stop! Just stop. If I lose this, you know what? I'm the one who has to live with this guy. I'll have to listen to him. I'll have to_ _protect_ _him. It's all going to be my fault, because I didn't back down when I had a chance. You, you're risking nothing."_

" _Shut up." Kelia said._

 _I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. "Wh-what?"_

I reached my starting position and stopped. The opposing trainer didn't even know we were talking.

" _I said, Shut. Up. You're not in this alone. And it's not just your fault. If we lose, it's my fault, too. You're fighting like you're alone here, but you're not. You want to know why they won? Because they were working as a team. We're a team, too. And you're trying to tell me I'm risking nothing? Do you have any idea what happens if we lose? You get taken away, and I'm going to have to live with the fact that I failed. I couldn't do anything, and you were taken away from me. And I'm going to have to tell your mom what happened. I'll spend my life wondering what I could've done. Where I went wrong. I'm risking nothing? No, I'm risking everything. So stop being such a whiner and get your act together."_

I was shocked. I wanted to object, but in the end, she was right.

"So are we starting or what?" said the other trainer.

"We're starting." Kelia said.

Kelia spoke quickly. " _The nest time I give you a command, you listen, okay? I'm not going to try to be like a traditional trainer, giving every little action play-by-play on the side. But that means everything I do say is incredibly important, and you follow it without hesitation. Okay?"_

" _But-"_

" _I can see what you don't. You're too bust fighting. I can see the bigger picture."_

3…

" _I…"_ I said.

2…

" _I…"_

1…

" _I trust you."_

Battle commence!

I expected the other trainer to do the same thing as last time, but he had other plans. The Infernape immediately rushed me.

" _Dodge!"_ Kelia said. Normally, I would try to parry it, but for once, I didn't argue. I stepped back and narrowly avoided a fire punch. I took the opening to fire off a psycho-cut. And it actually connected. The first attack of the battle against Infernape that did so. The Infernape took a heavy hit. It was stronger than me, but the super-effective hit left its mark.

" _Get out of there, fast!"_ I jumped away just as it launched another fire punch. Then, I had an idea of my own. I knew how my opponent worked.

I _strategically_ smiled and curtsied.

It enraged the other trainer, which was exactly what I wanted. He fought worse when he was angry.

It rushed me again, right where I was at my best. Close range. Kelia didn't speak up again, because she didn't need to. I knew what I was doing.

It tried to sandwich me between two fire punches, but I ducked and hit it in the head with a psycho-uppercut. I kept a smile on my face, like this was easy, and it just got angrier and angrier.

I was finally controlling the fight. The pair of them were too angry to realize it would be best to go back to ranged combat.

Just as I thought they were hopeless, I saw a ripple travel down the string between the two of them. The Infernape was still enraged, but it jumped back. It fired a lightning-quick ember at me, almost too quickly. " _Left!"_ Kelia yelled. I jumped left. With she and I working in tandem, I got out of the way successfully. Too bad it _homed in on me!_ It singed my right arm. I winced, but I was fine. I still had another arm to fight with.

"Agh!" Kelia yelled suddenly, in pain.

I turned to look at her. Was she okay? She was grasping her arm.

Her eyes widened. "Right!"

I didn't question it. I rolled right as fast as I could. I dodged a full on close combat coming from behind.

"Are you kidding me? Attacking her when she was distracted? You're despicable!" Kelia said.

"You don't even know me," he said. He didn't even bat an eye at his own ruthless behaviors anymore. I didn't know what was stopping him from straight-up kidnapping me. _Maybe I shouldn't have made him angry,_ I thought. _It was good in the short term, but now? And maybe I shouldn't have entered this fight. Why was I so stubborn? Why did I have to put my life on the line? Why couldn't I have just let an asshole be an asshole and went on my merry way?_

I shook the thoughts out of my head. I put myself in this mess. It was too late to say what if, I was already here. And I was going to get myself out.

I fought on. He tried to keep a distance, tried to fire off flamethrowers at me, but he was losing steam. He no longer could get away as I closed in. I even used my earlier plan, chopping down the trees around us so he couldn't use them to escape. He and his pokemon were getting less close by the second. Their ideals were drifting. The Infernape didn't seem to agree with how far he was taking it. And emotions aside, his Infernape was running out of stamina.

The Infernape made one last desperate attempt. It lunged at me with one last close combat up its sleeve, weakening its defenses even more. I easily dodged it, with my insane agility, and hit it with one last psycho-cut. It went down and didn't get back up again.

We weren't triumphant when we won. I was just glad it was over. Besides, maybe it wasn't over. I didn't know what dirty tricks this guy might pull.

"I win." Kelia said. "Give me my money and get out of my way."

"I said a traditional battle-" the other trainer said.

"Traditional? That wasn't traditional. That was the definition of underhanded. If you think you can convince me to fight another one of your pokemon for a 3v3, you're sorely mistaken."

" _For the record, I hate you, too,"_ I said.

He said nothing to us. He chuckled. Then, he laughed. Like an evil villain, defeated, with nothing else to do but laugh at the world. If this guy wasn't part of some sort of evil organization, they were missing out.

Kelia yelled, "Stop the battle!" out of nowhere.

"What?" I said. I was confused. "Isn't it already…" I felt an intense heat on the back of my neck.

I turned and saw the Inferno, somehow still upright. It had fainted its fainting. And it's flaming fist was inches from me.

"You forfeit, then?" the mystery guy said. "Good choice."

I was stunned. I… even after all of that, I had lost. I mean, I had won, but… I had lost. I missed it. And now I had to live with this… this living pile of evil. " _Eris, don't worry. I'll get you out of this, I promise,"_ Kelia said.

" _We can't go against the law. We lost, you said-"_

" _Yes, we can go against it. I'm not that virtuous. And I'm not letting you go. You can teleport, right?"_

" _Of course I can. But I can't take you with me, not at my skill level. I can't leave you-"_

" _On my mark, teleport away. I can deal with him."_

" _No! There has to be another way!"_

" _Eris-"!_

"Are you going to send out your next pokemon or what?" the other trainer said.

And everything stopped. Next… pokemon?

"Eris is my only one," Kelia said.

The mystery trainer froze. "What did you just say?"

"I don't have any other pokemon. Didn't I say that…?"

His whole stature changed. Like he went from the villain of the story to just a meek damsel in distress.

He reached into his bag and grabbed his wallet. He pulled out a wad of bills and thrust them into Kelia's hand. Several of them fell to the forest floor. "There are your winnings."

"Wait a minute, what's going on!?"

"Goodbye," he said as he disappeared into the forest. I wanted to run after him, but I didn't think I had the strength.

Just like that, it was over.

"… _What the heck just happened?"_ I said.

Kelia had a blank look on her face. "I think we should tell people it's only the two of us more often."

I looked into the spot he disappeared into the deep forest. " _I think I agree."_

"…What the heck just happened?"

" _You know, I still don't have a clue."_

With that, my legs collapsed from beneath me.

Kelia caught me. "Are you okay!?"

I winced. I hadn't even fully healed from the last fight. " _I'm fine_ ," I said. _"Just, no more battles for me today."_

Kelia chuckled at my nonchalant attitude. Then, she started thinking. "I figured that much. Well, we can't stay here, obviously. Another dangerous pokemon might attack. I don't suppose going to your house is an option?"

Just because my mom had a change of heart didn't mean I trusted her. " _Not unless we have to…"_

Kelia sighed. _"_ Then I guess our best bet is my place."

I felt a sense of dread emanating from her. " _Is that a bad thing?"_

"It's complicated. I may or may not have run away from home."

" _You did what? When?"_

"Maybe a few hours ago. How did you think I got to the forest? How do you think I activated a 'psychic burst?' It's really complicated, but I don't know how mom's going to react when I get back."

" _I'm sure she'll forgive you. It's a mom's job."_

"I hope you're right."

I thought of bringing up Kelia's weird clone, or what happened to her arm, but maybe that could wait until we got to somewhere safe. Kelia helped me up, and for the second time that day, the two of us walked through to woods toward a faraway town.

* * *

 _A/N: I hope the constantly shifting perspective doesn't get confusing. I tried adding the character specifications to alleviate confusion. If it does, tell me. I can fix it in the future. And if it doesn't, if it's fine, could someone tell me that, too? I like to know when I'm being too paranoid._

 _Also, I hope I proved the mystery tag's worth._

 _Post a review, yada yada._

 _Short author's note is short._

 _Next time: Training. For both parties. See you then!_


	5. Strings of Confession

Strings of Confession

\- - -Kelia- - -

After everything that had happened, now it was time to face the consequences. What if she freaked out? I mean, she expected me to come home right away, but when I didn't show up, when I ran like that from the lab…

" _Are you going to knock on the door or not?"_ Eris said.

We were standing just outside my house. "I'm going. Don't rush me!" I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

I waited. It had come so fast. I mean, what did I expect, running off into the woods? I guess I got lucky that everything ended up going so well. If I had run into those Luxray and Kelia hadn't been there… Well, at least I was okay now. After I made a scene like that, I should've known something like this would happen sooner or later.

Couldn't it have been later?

No?

I sighed. If the door would open already, that would be great! At this rate the anticipation would kill me before that Luxray managed to!

I knocked again. I knew mom should've been home. I grabbed the doorknob, but it was locked. I hoped she wasn't out looking for me! I didn't have a line connecting to her. She didn't have any sort of cell phone, either, so if she wasn't home, I had no way to contact her.

I grabbed the spare key from its hiding place and opened the door. "Hello?!" I said. No response.

Eris sensed my emotions, I guess. "What's wrong?"

"This isn't like mom…" I said.

I turned the house upside-down, but she was nowhere to be seen. I knew, there had to be a logical explanation. Something might've come up, or she might've just been out looking for me. But something inside me told me that something was horribly wrong.

Then, I saw the note on the refrigerator. "Out for groceries. Don't forget to pack your toothbrush like I did!"

I stared at the note. Then, I burst out laughing. " _What?"_ Eris said.

"It's just, I was so worried, and all this time she was grocery shopping." I remembered. I hadn't really payed attention, I was too busy worrying about everything else. I think her plan was for me to pick up my pokemon, then for me to come back and pack for my adventure. You know, so my pokemon would be a part of every step. She might've told me she was grocery shopping, too? If she did, I didn't remember it. I hope I didn't freak her out too much when I didn't show up…

I guess this gave me time to pack up my stuff. I couldn't believe my luck. Mom didn't even seem to know I had run? I guess, checking my watch, it had only been about 2 hours since my panic attack. Or, 'psychic burst,' I guess the official term was. Speaking of that, I hoped the professor wasn't too mad at me.

You know what, I was 16, why did I still care so much about what adults thought? My mom was one thing. The professor, I didn't really agree with his methods, anyways! What could he do? …Give me my pokedex. Which I needed.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, the saying goes.

I packed up my stuff quickly. A few changes of clothes (I would have to buy a white dress or something to match with Eris…) the money I had saved up plus the 50,000 P or so I just won, my toiletries, a sleeping bag, some rope (you never knew when you might need some rope!) some cooking supplies, some food to start off with, and a notebook for sketching and writing.

I tore a page out of said notebook and wrote,

"Dear mom…

I'm sorry I missed you. I want you to know, I'm fine. You might've heard I ran away from the pokemon center before grabbing my first pokemon? I'm sorry. It's true, but I'm fine now. And I'm going on my journey with Eris (My new Kirlia)! So, don't worry about me, okay? I'm sure I'll be seeing you around!

-Kelia.

I stared at that note for a long time. None of it was wrong, but it felt like it was.

I tore out the page and tried again. This time, I gave up my heart and soul. I wrote everything. The Strings of emotion I had never told her about. The reason I ran away. The real problem with the 'labs.' Eris, the Luxrays, the cloaked trainer,

I posted the note on the fridge.

" _Is all this really necessary? Can't you tell her in person? I won't mind waiting until she comes back."_

I didn't answer her. I… the truth was, I couldn't bring myself to stay here any longer. I knew that Mom probably would forgive me in an instant, being the person she was, but I couldn't bear to wait for her. I was too afraid to tell her all this in person.

I tried to play it off. "We'll be fine, Eris. Besides, if we want to be out of here before the sun sets, we need to get a pokedex."

She didn't buy my explanation for a second. She wasn't her normal cheery self. " _Can I… can I ask how you ended up in that forest back there? You said you ran away?"_

I gave her a look. "It said it in the note I wrote mom."

" _What makes you think I can read human?"_

 _Oh, right._ The problem was, I didn't even know where to start.

" _Come on, you need to tell someone. I can see it."_

"Am I that transparent?"

" _Yep."_

"Yeah, okay, I'll tell you. It… I mean, it's not that bad if I say it aloud? You could say it's a long story. To put it simply, I went into the lab to get my first pokemon, had a panic attack, and ran into the woods. I just can't get myself to face Mom and tell her that."

" _I think that's putting it a bit_ _too_ _simply. There has to be more, doesn't there? Remember, stop hiding your emotions. You don't want to surge again, do you?"_

"Don't you remember? It's different here. Letting your emotions flow isn't normal. Besides that, it's a _really_ long story. I don't have time to tell it. Do you even know what a starter pokemon is?"

" _No."_

"Then you won't understand any of this."

" _Can't you humor me?"_

I sighed. The longer we waited here, the more chances Mom had to arrive. "Fine, I'll tell you, but can you wait?"

She crossed her arms. " _I'm not leaving until you tell me."_

I realized, I was letting my emotions get to me. I took a deep breath to steady myself.. "Well, I'm leaving, with you or without." I walked out the door.

Eris watched as I walked away. After a few seconds, she said, " _Hey, wait for me!"_

* * *

Eris pestered me for information on the way, but I mostly ignored her.

Because I was psyching myself up.

Because now, it was time to (try to) explain to Rowan what was happened back there.

Maybe he would take it as well as my mom? As in, not be there so I could steal a pokedex? Okay, maybe that would be a little _too_ convenient.

I rounded around a few more houses and reached the rather innocuous-looking lab. You know, just another house. Except, it wasn't too innocuous-looking this time. There was a crowd of people surrounding it for some reason.

I rushed down to the group of people. There weren't this many 16th birthdays today, I thought for there to be a line this long. "What's going on?" I said to the crowd.

One of the members of the growing mob turned to me. Mom. "Oh, thank heavens you're okay!"

I was so thrown off that I didn't have time to think about the events earlier that day. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

"It's Professor Rowan. H-he's vanished! I am so glad to see that you're alright. When you didn't show up after thirty minutes, I guess I didn't think much of it. You were taking your time playing with it, or training or something. But now that I saw what happened to Rowan…" she started tearing up.

"Mom, it's okay! I'm fine, okay? I'm okay."

"But I was so worried. Where were you!?"

"It's a long story, I'll tell you later. But what happened to Rowan?" I was more worried about Rowan. I was the only person getting my pokemon today, I was the only one in town with my 16th birthday today. And I was the last person he saw. I hoped people weren't going to get suspicious of me.

"We're… not exactly sure. At least, I'm not. One of his assistants came in and apparently found the lab completely ransacked. Papers strewn everywhere, and Rowan nowhere to be seen. It used to be so peaceful around here…"

"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding or something, right? When I came home, I thought you were kidnapped or something, right? Rowan's lab's been messy for a while, I'm sure it's nothing."

"I hope you're right…"

I pushed through the rest of the crowd. Come on, Rowan couldn't be _gone_ , could he?

I looked into the open lab. It wasn't the same as my house, It wasn't me overreacting this time. The lab was ransacked, and there were _police_ in the lab, three people checking out the crime scene. No wonder there was a crowd.

A reporter was even there, trying to figure out what was going on.

" _What's going on?"_ Kelia said.

I steeled myself. "We need to help," I said.

" _Help? Could you tell me what's going on?"_

"You have police in your society? Like, officer Jennies and stuff?"

" _Po-lice?"_

"People who enforce the law?"

" _What's a law?"_

"I'll tell you later. What's important is, my friend disappeared, and I know some information that might help find him."

" _So like, the detectives?"_

"You have a word for detective and not… oh, never mind." I turned to the crime scene. _"_ Excuse me, miss?" I called to the officer Jenny there. "I think might be able to help you with your investigation!"

She turned to me. "What's that, kid?"

"I think I was the last one who saw Rowan before he disappeared. Well, until maybe someone kidnapped him or something. I'm not sure if I can tell you much, but I'd like to help if I can."

She glanced back to her superior. "You're the kid he met with before he disappeared? That makes my job a lot easier. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

* * *

It was a long, tedious process I won't go over here. Basically, the police found out I had run away in a panic based on eyewitness testimony. The questioner wanted to know why. I told them what I could (excluding the why, of course), about how I couldn't stand the choice between the starters and ran away. I thought they'd be disappointed. They thought I would give them a huge lead in the case, like maybe I had run from the attacker and saw their face, but I didn't have much to tell them. But I didn't see that. They didn't register any disappointment at all. Maybe they didn't expect me to tell them much? I don't think they suspected me, but I was sorry I couldn't help them any more.

After everything was said and done, Officer Jenny put on a false smile. "Thanks for coming. If we have any more questions, we'll let you know." She looked back to her documents, perhaps looking for some other evidence she might have missed. Or maybe she had another lead? I hoped so.

I got up and walked over to the door, where Eris was waiting for me. I hesitated. "Um…" I said.

"Yes?" he said, without looking up.

Here I was, the moment of truth. I hoped that I wouldn't have to reveal this, but… "I want you to know, I'm a psychic. I… I haven't told anybody about it, I didn't want people to think I was weird. I might not have been helpful otherwise, but I might be able to help locate Rowan."

She looked at me with the same look she had when I first told her I was the last one who saw Rowan. Skepticism mixed with awe. "…What?"

"I'm a psychic, okay? I don't know why, but I can see relationships between people. I think it might help the investigation? If I got more information, I might be able to locate him."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't tell anybody about this, okay? If that's the truth, we need to be careful about this."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're an unregistered psychic. I could arrest you right now for not stepping forwards before your 13th birthday."

I froze. "U-unregistered?"

"I know, you didn't know the law, but it doesn't matter in the end. If you ended up helping us find the culprit and it was found out we used your powers, the case might be dropped. I'd love to have you help, but it's legally shaky."

I was appalled. "That's not fair! They're the ones who did it, right? What does it matter I wasn't registered?"

"Welcome to the legal world kid."

"But what if Rowan's in danger? Shouldn't we find him as soon as possible?"

"We know what we're doing. He'll be home before you know it."

I knew what that meant. She sounded so confident, but I could see it in her emotional strings. They didn't have any leads. For some reason, she was really hard to get a read on, otherwise, but in that even she couldn't hide that they didn't know where Rowan was.

I wanted so badly to tell her she was wrong, that I could help her, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. The police knew what they were doing, right? I would just get in the way.

I sighed and walked out the door.

* * *

It was dark out by the end of the interrogation. It had been a long day. Mom offered to drive me home, but I told her I wanted to walk. I think she needed to go to the grocery store or something. I barely heard her. On the way back, I told Eris what happened during the interrogation. How I knew I could do something to actually help, _for once_ , but they wouldn't let me. I didn't say it to Eris, but I felt guilty that I had run away from Rowan right before he disappeared. Maybe, if I had been there, I could've done something. Eris said nothing in response to anything I said. I was glad to have an ear to talk to.

When I finally reached home, mom wasn't there yet. It was just me. The first thing I saw was the note on the refrigerator. The one explaining everything. The one I placed my heart and soul into. I tore it down, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the trash.

Mom got home pretty soon after that, but I had already crashed in bed. It was late.

I rested my head against my pillow. Rowan, he was gone. And when I had a chance to help, I was just shut down. What if I hadn't run this morning? Could I have helped if I hadn't run away like I did? Maybe I could do better for the police than tell them nothing. Now, the only thing I could do was hope it turned out okay…

" _We're doing our own investigation, of course,"_ Eris said, the first thing since we left the station.

"…What?"

" _If the police won't let us help, aren't we going to do it ourselves? I thought that was obvious."_

"But, what if-"

" _She told you couldn't help because of legal stuff or whatever, right? So, if you caught them and then called the police_ _afterwards_ _, it'd be fine, wouldn't it?"_

"But-"

" _You wanted to save Rowan, didn't you? Who know what might happen to him if he isn't found soon? He might've been caught by a really bad trainer or something!"_

"Rowan's not a pokemon, remember?"

" _Well, he still might be in danger! Are you telling me you'd rather sit here and wait, just hoping the police find him than help? I know you feel guilty about running away, but doesn't that just make you want to help find him more?"_

"Eris, stop. We can't do anything more, okay? It's out of our hands."

Eris stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. She wasn't sad, or angry, or disappointed, or… anything.

" _What does this say?"_ she said after that unknown length of time. She pulled out something from behind her back. It was wadded-up paper. She un-balled it, and I recognized it as the note I had left for mom.

"What…" I said.

" _I asked you, what does this say? Don't paraphrase, read it to me, word for word."_

"But I-"

" _Treat it like you're teaching me to read human. This happens to be the paper you're using."_

"That's not exactly a fair comparison! Besides, this has nothing to do with Rowan."

" _Just read it to me, okay? I saw our string when you read it. It was pure honesty. You poured your heart into it. You did one of the more Gardevoir things I've seen. So don't let these strong emotions go to waste."_

I grabbed the crumpled note from her hands. I was tempted to rip it to shreds. But I took a deep breath and started reading.

"First off, I'm fine. I want you to know that. Yes, I ran away from Rowan's lab, and I want to tell you why. The truth is, I'm different from everyone else. I can see emotions. Physically see them. I'm a psychic, I've always wanted to tell you. I never could tell you. I also never wanted to be a pokemon trainer. Starter pokemon, I can see their emotions. I've seen them. They look so happy, but they're just emotionless husks. They smile, but they don't feel it. That mythical 'first bond' doesn't exist. And I told no one. I thought it was the only way. Everyone told me I _had_ to get my starter at my 16th birthday. If I told someone, I thought… I don't know what I thought. Whatever the case, I knew, I could never do it. I could never pick one of _them._ I kept lying, to you and everyone and I'm sorry. I want you to know that. I'm sorry. Everything collapsed in on me and I ran. I should've told you sooner. I…" I trailed off as I started crying.

" _Let your emotions out. Just let them out. It's okay."_

I closed my eyes. I know it's a cliché, but it felt like a weight was lifting off my shoulders. Somebody finally knew what I had been going through.

As my last teardrop fell, I said, "You know, Eris, maybe you're right."

" _Right? About what?_

"You're right about helping Rowan. The only reason I didn't say yes was because I was too busy wallowing in my own self-pity. Anger at myself for never telling anybody for so many years. So I'm in. We're bringing this criminal to justice."

Eris patted me on the back. " _There's the Kelia I know."_

I felt a burst of adrenaline. I stood up on my bed. "Let the world know, I will find Rowan, whether the police wants it or not! Nothing's holding me back any longer!"

A call sounded from outside my room. "Get to bed, Kelia!" Mom said.

"Sorry, mom," I said.

I settled into bed. I wish I'd found Eris so much sooner. For now, tomorrow, I had a purpose. I would try my hardest to find Rowan. I was gifted with these strings. They weren't something to be ashamed of. So I should've been able to use them. Once I found the building, I could tell the police about it, and they could take it from there. All the while, staying inside the law. No matter whatever happened afterwards, whether I broke in or the police did, it didn't matter. I could help find Rowan. I wasn't held down by emotional shackles any longer. These supposed kidnappers wouldn't know what hit them.

* * *

 _A/N: Well, this took longer than expected!_

 _I meant to get this out a few days ago, but stuff came up. I'll try my best to improve my upload schedule._

 _Anyways, this chapter was made when I realized this fic was a bit action-heavy so far, so I'm trying to balance that out. Hopefully the next few chapters build more character and plot, with mixing the action in rather than spending entire chapters dedicated to it. If I could change something about this fic so far, I'd change that._

 _Post a review if you liked this chapter! As always, I work hard on these!_

 _And stay tuned for next time, where there's some sluthing, some solving, and some plot-twist…ing. See you then!_


	6. Strings of Sleuthing

Strings of Sleuthing

 _A/N: Told you I'd get more consistent. I have some ground to make up, don't I?_

* * *

\- - -Kelia- - -

I'd never really tried to track someone down through their strings. They floated everywhere, often it was easy to just ignore them. You get used to them if it's always happened to you. To pick out one specific string and hope it belonged to Rowan, it was almost impossible.

I wracked my brain for the best way to find him. I knew Mom and Rowan had a faint green line: acquaintances. But mom had about 50 light green lines. Rowan was just one of them. Picking one at random would get me nowhere. But that did lead me to a much better idea. When I casually stared at her for a few minutes trying to find Rowan's line (With mom throwing me more than a a few odd looks), I found my eyes kept being attracted to her black ones, of the people she hated or really disliked, and her few pink lines, showing a very close connection, like with bet friends and loves. The rest were a dime a dozen. Of course, there are the even stronger lines, like silver ones, but they're rare. But then I remembered, Rowan actually _had_ a silver line, didn't he? If I could find the other end, it would be a cakewalk to trace it back to Rowan.

The only logical person to go to, then, was his wife. It was impossible for me to say exactly what strings cennect to who for sure, but hypothetically, if I followed her silver line, it would lead straight to Rowan. I mean, come one, who else could it go to. Rowan wasn't a pokemon trainer or anything, right? Who deserved a silver line other than your significant other?

I knew where she lived, the same place as Rowan so my first step was going there. If everything went my way, I wouldn't even need to speak with her, just Follow her line. It would take me just as long as it took to follow the string.

When I got there, though, there were many lines coming out of the building, but… not a single silver one. I circled the building twice just to be sure, but there wasn't a single one in sight. Maybe there were a few house delcatties in there causing the lines and she was elsewhere?

" _Don't make assumptions,"_ Eris said. " _You should make sure she isn't home before you look for her elsewhere."_

"I was planning on it! Did you think I was just going to walk away? Yeesh, give me a little credit."

I walked up and knocked on the door. Best-case scenario, no-one would answer.

The door opened. Of course, Rowan's wife was at the door. She was a very broad woman. She instantly had a commanding presence. She wore a frilly dress, but she made _that_ look a bit intimidating. It looked like her mom was human but her dad was an Ursurang or something!

Descriptions aside… she didn't have a single silver string connecting to her.

Couldn't life be easy for once?

"What do you want?" she said. She was more composed than I thought she'd be. She was frustrated, but not sad.

"I-I'm sorry about what happened to Rowan…" I stammered

"Yes, yes. But I know you're not here for that, are you? People don't just come over to say they sympathize with me. I asked you a question: what do you want?"

I was taken aback by her directness. I took a deep breath. "I think I can help find your husband."

Her resolve was broken for a second. "You can…?"

"Yes, I can. I'm not just a kid playing pretend, I'm really here to help. But I need to ask you a few questions." Dang, I felt like a film noir detective or something!

"But you're so young."

"Don't worry about my age. I'm just saying, worst case-senario, I question you for five minutes then find nothing, either because I was lying about being able to help, or not being good at it. But best case-scenario, I can help. Trust me, I'm _not_ lying, and if I am, there's no downside for you."

Her eyes darkened. "Are with the police?"

I hesitated. I considered lying to her, but if she found out later, it would undermine the whole operation. It would be better in the long run to tell the truth.

"No, ma'am. I'm running my own operation, here."

She looked back and forth for a few seconds, then pulled me inside. Like, she literally grabbed my shirt and _yanked, closing the door seconds behind me._

Eris was left behind the closing door. She literally had to teleport in after me. Sheesh, I wasn't asking for much. How about basic human decency?

I wiped those thoughts out of my mind. I was on a case, here. "So, miss…?" I said.

"Miss Rowan?" she said. Oh, yeah, Professors generally went by their last names, so she would share the name. Duh.

"Miss Rowan, then. Could you, um… describe your relationship with your husband?"

She gave me a strange look. "What does that have anything to do with this?" Her face darkened. "You… you don't suspect me, do you?"

"No, no!" I said, and quickly. "I don't suspect you at all, unless I find more information that tells me otherwise. If I did, do you think I would confront you about it and not tell the police?" I elaborated. "I'm an empath, I'm trying to find your husband by sensing his emotions." (Not technically true, but I was generalizing) "The police have hit a dead-end, but… I think I can help."

She was a bit surprised when I told her I was a psychic, but she settled down when I said I didn't suspect her. "Okay. I'm sorry, I'm a bit high-strung."

I was about to move on, but something stood out to me. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to intrude, but you didn't seem high-strung earlier."

"Wh-what?"

"When you greeted us at the door, you weren't anything of the sort. What makes you flustered now?"

"Aren't I allowed to suppress my emotions a little? Of course I'm grieving he's gone."

I saw a few of her strings twitch. She was… lying. She didn't do it, did she?

"I need you to tell me the truth if we want to find your husband," I said.

"You're just a kid. This doesn't involve you."

Now I was angry. She was deflecting my questions, and furthermore, _she called me a child._ "Just a kid? I'm 16, thank you very much! I thought I went over this earlier. Look, I'm doing this because I was there just before Rowan was kidnapped. So, yes, I'm sorry of your loss, but just because I'm not related to him directly doesn't mean it doesn't involve me whatsoever! Look, I can find Rowan. Do you want that to happen or not?"

"Of course I do," she said. Paying close attention, she wasn't lying. Wait a second. If she wanted to get Rowan back, that meant she couldn't have kidnapped him. If she kidnapped him, she wouldn't care. There went that theory.

But then, why was she getting so defensive? If she was innocent, she did she care…? Ugh, stupid psychology. Maybe Eris was right on this emotional point, why couldn't people just be honest to each other? It would make this a whole lot easier for me.

"Okay, I know you were telling the truth then. You want Rowan found. Then the best way to do that would be telling the truth."

She stared at me for a few seconds. "You can tell if I'm lying?"

"Yes, I can. So I would suggest-"

"Then I have no reason to talk with you."

"W-what?"

"You're not with the police, are you? I have no reason to answer your questions. So get out of my house."

"Ma'am, you told me yourself you wanted your husband found, and you weren't lying. Why am I the wrong person to do it?"

"Get out."

"I-"

"GET OUT!"

I sighed. I wasn't intimidated by her, but I wasn't going to keep arguing. "Fine. But if you ever need my help, here's my phone number." I gave her a sheet of paper with the number on it and walked out the door.

After we walked a block or so away from the house, Eris said, " _What happened in there?"_

"I'm not sure. We need further investigation to know for sure. I guess Ms. Rowan might've done something suspicious? I'm not a detective. I just know she didn't do it. Beyond that, it doesn't matter. Saving Rowan is our priority, playing the blame game can wait.

' _No, I get that. I mean, what happened to her strings."_

I cocked my head. "What do you mean?"

" _You didn't see it? Every time she mentioned Rowan, one of her strings twitched ever so slightly."_

"…What? No, I didn't see that! That must've been Rowan's string! Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

" _I kind of said it at the first possible opportunity since we left. You were busy in there.. Plus, I thought you saw it, I didn't figure it was worth mentioning."_

"I was too busy paying attention to her voice. But this is a huge lead! Do you know which one it was?"

She smiled. " _I'm the lead detective now, then? Follow me."_ She bolted off down 11th street. I sprinted after her.

* * *

\- - -Eris' perspective- - -

Hmm, this was interesting. Using clues from your surroundings, using logic and deductive reasoning to try and figure out a case. It was kind of like a pokemon battle! Paying attention to every little detail, trying to find a flaw in their defenses. Well, kind of like that. It made sense in my head, anyways.

I lead the way down the string. This was easy! Just see one single string twitch and catch the culprit. If I had to guess by the opacity of the string, it was only a mile away or so. I ran the whole way.

For some reason, Kelia was really tired by the end. C'mon, couldn't she take a light jog like that?

I expected to come across a random factory. But instead, I just came across a small house, looking like every other one around it.

I got serious. Here we were, Rowan. No more time for jokes.

" _Do we go in?"_ I said.

Kelia was gasping for breath. "Hold… on… one… second…"

Wow, she really was tired. Maybe humans didn't have stamina like I did.

Anyways, _focus._

After a few seconds, she looked up. She scanned the house. I took the opportunity to do that as well. There weren't that many lines heading into it. And one of them was silver, just like Kelia said it should be! There were only a few concentrations of them, only 3 or so people were in there. If Rowan was one of them, there were only two. I knew I could take them.

I dashed up to the building before the exhausted Kelia could stop me. Before I stepped inside, though, I paused. I learned my lesson last fight, it would be better to wait for Kelia. She often had good advice when it came to this stuff.

She stumbled up behind me. "Thanks for waiting for me. I'm sure you realized, it would be foolish to rush in with no police backup or anything."

I burst the door open after 'thank you for stopping.'

"You need to learn self-control," she said.

I shrugged, but my mind was already in combat mode. I considered some possible senarios I could face in there. I glanced at Kelia. " _Maybe you should wait outside. I can always teleport away when things go sour, but you can't."_

Kelia wanted to object, but she conceded I had a point. "Fine, but for the love of Arceus, don't take unnessecary risks. If you can't take an enemy in there, _don't."_

"Got it."

I ran inside, past the busted-down door, and towards the group of lines. And I saw, not two thugs guarding an imprisoned proffesor, but a family of people lounging around their tv room, watching a movie. The silver line was leading out of the wife, and she was the same one connecting to Rowan's wife. I looked around awkwardly. Nobody even seemed to notice me, they were too engrossed into their tv. It was obvious I made a mistake, followed the wrong line or something.

I backed out the door slowly. I casually propped the broken door to the frame, so they wouldn't notice it was broken down.

"You're out quickly!" Kelia said.

" _Wrong house,"_ I said. " _Rowan's not in here. Somehow, I must've lost the line on the way here."_ I was frustrated at myself. How did I make a mistake like that?

Kelia wasn't angry at me. "It's fine, everyone makes mistakes. Just tell me what happened."

" _It was just a normal family. Nothing to note. Mom, dad, kid. The silver line connected out from the wife."_

"Not to the husband?"

" _Come on, you know that's nothing special. I've seen quite a few silver lines in this town alone, and not one was between a husband and a wife."_

Kelia sighed. "Then I guess we're back to square one. It's fine, we just need to find the right string next time. You think you could keep better track of the string if we were able to talk with her again?"

" _I just wish I got it the first time."_

"Stop beating yourself up. I doubt a few minutes are going to matter."

" _I guess you're right."_

We worked our way back to Rowan's house, and I followed the line to make sure it didn't get mixed up with another one on the way. It defninitely the same one. When we arrived, Kelia knocked on the door again. But there was no response, even though I knew she was in there. I could see her lines.

"Hello!?" Kelia shouted.

…No response.

"Please, I need to have a few questions answered!"

Again, no response.

She knocked again and again. While she did all that, I started thinking. There had to be a better way. The line twitched any time she mentioned it… or Kelia mentioned it.

I sent a telepathic message right at her. " _PROFFESOR ROWAN!"_

The same line I followed twitched again. The… same line? That didn't make any sense whatsoever. It had to be a different one, I had to have made a mistake. Because if I didn't make a mistake, why would she think of a line that didn't lead to Rowan, a person that wasn't Rowan, every time Rowan was mentioned?

I saw that Kelia was covering her ears. " _What?"_ I said.

"Could you not send the incredibly loud message at me next time?"

"… _oops_."

The door swung open. "What in Arceus' sake do you want?" Ms. Rowan said.

Before she said anything, I said, " _You're husband's having an affair, isn't he?"_ I said.

I know, it was a bit of a leap. But it fit the evidence perfectly. A twitch of resentment to the woman who seduced her husband every time she thought of him. And it would explain why she wasn't that sad he was gone. And it explained the wife back thereHer shocked expression and lack of denial afterwards just further proved my point.

Ms. Rowan just stared at us, flabbergasted.

I clapped my hands. " _Great!"_ I said. " _Now that that's out of the way, and we know what you were hiding, then maybe we can help find your husband."_

"What," she said. It wasn't a question, more of a statement.

" _Affairs happen. More often than you might think. I've seen evidence of, like, three, in this town alone. I've never understood humans' immense discomfort of them. You can't expect to stay with one mate your whole life, can you? Seriously. Can't we move onto more important issues already?"_

She kept staring at us. Again, she was quite intimidating!

Kelia stepped in front of me. "Eris didn't mean it, I swear!"

Then, she smiled. She smiled at what I said. She even chuckled a little. "Wow. That's one way of putting it, isn't it? You're brash! I guess from a Pokémon's perspective, an affair isn't such a big deal, huh?"

Finally, someone who's sane. " _Pretty much sums up what I just said."_

"Okay… Eris, was it? You've made me laugh. Come in, come in." Kind of confused, the two of us walked in. I guess it was nice not having to teleport through the door. She sat us down at her sofa.

She smiled. "The truth is, I'm the one who kidnapped Rowan."

Everything stopped.

"You did _what?"_ Kelia said.

" _YOU DID WHAT?"_ I said.

It was like a Feenix right character change. (Yes, we have video games in our society, and yes, they're all terrible misspellings of English names Anyways, where was I…) Before, she was confident, but timid. Now, she was arrogant, not caring at all about our threat. Just after we revealed her affair, she was seemingly okay with revealing everything else.

"Yeah, it was me. I couldn't forgive him. So, I locked him in my basement and made it look like he was kidnapped."

" _Th-that's a confession! I could arrest you right now!"_

"You have no evidence. You're not recording this, obviously. And if you tried to overpower me, well…"

"I don't understand," Kelia said. "When you said you'd love if we found Rowan, you weren't lying!"

Her smile faded. "It's true, I wasn't lying. In fact, maybe I'll enlist your help, you're clearly good detectives. You can tell if I'm lying, you said? Well, here's the full truth. I kidnapped him, locked him in the basement, then he disappeared.

"What tells me you're not lying?" Kelia said.

"You can detect my lies, can't you?" She gave a hearty laugh.

I looked on, wide-eyed." _I was paying attention, she's telling the truth,"_ I said.

Kelia's mind was spinning. "So you're telling me you kidnapped your own husband for what seems to be no reason, then he just disappeared?"

"No, and no. I kidnapped him to torture him after what he did to torture me."

"That's horrible! You're horrible!" Kelia said.

"Never said I wasn't. Anyways, I never said he 'disappeared without a trace."

" _Yes you did."_ I cut in.

She cleared her throat. "As I was saying, he was kidnapped."

"You're telling me he was kidnapped from being kidnapped?"

Honestly, I hated this woman, she might have had evidence. And I could still say she wasn't lying. I didn't care about the logistics of how likely it was, the truth was, it happened. Not saying we wouldn't arrest her later, of course, but for now…

" _What was the trace, then?"_

"Oh, I can tell you what the 'trace' is. Or, even better! I'll show you! I'll let you into my basement to check it out."

"Not a chance," Kelia said. "What's stopping you from locking us in yourself?"

"Fine, then. Don't go in there, trust my word Then I guess you'll have to trust me when I say the people I think did it were-"

There was a knock at the door. Once again, everything froze.

Ms. Rowan creeped over to the drapes. She saw something outside, and her eyes widened. "Get out of here, NOW."

"There are no other doors!" Kelia said.

"That's your problem. I need to deal with these creeps."

She straightened her face to look like it had when we first saw her. You know, to make it look like she _wasn't_ a kidnapper who just didn't care about being a kidnapper.

She walked over to the door.

Kelia and I started looking around the room for a way out.

The time limit was approaching fast. I sighed. Well, if there was no other option… " _Take my hand,"_ I said.

"Wh-"

" _JUST DO IT!"_

She grabbed my hand. I concentrated on the image of the outside, and in an instant, we were just outside of the house. I felt incredibly woozy. I fell to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Kelia said.

" _I'll be fine_ ," I said.

I got up. Fortunately, it was a pretty short distance to travel. Just because teleportation came naturally to me didn't mean it wasn't a million times harder with someone in tow. If I didn't specialize in teleporting, I'd be full-on passed out.

I peaked at the doorway. There was a police officer standing there. I guess she was simply scared of being arrested. And I wasted so much energy teleporting away for that, typical.

" _Don't worry about me. We have a culprit to catch."_

"But we don't have any leads."

" _Didn't you say earlier, you didn't care about any of the other crimes, just about where Rowan is_ _right now_ _? Well, I know how to find him. Remember the woman with the silver line? If we follow that line, I'd be willing to bet it's leading to Rowan."_

"You're right. Then what are we waiting for? Let's do this thing!"

" _For the record, I was waiting for_ _you_ _,"_ I said. But Kelia was already following the line.

* * *

We followed the line to the house, then that silver line off to who knew where. The whole time, we talked battle plans. And, well, our last battle came up.

" _By the way, why were you grasping your arm during the last battle?"_

"…Um…"

" _No lying, to each other, remember?"_

"I think I'm able to feel your pain."

" _I said, no lying."_

"I'm not! Do you think I could make that up?"

" _Really. You can feel my pain? That's not possible without high-level-"_

She pinched her arm. I felt a sharp pain in mine. " _What."_

"I don't know. It didn't happen during the Luxray fight."

" _That isn't physically possible. It breaks the laws of psychic energy."_

"Of course it isn't. Didn't you say that the strings are impossible? Maybe this should wait for after all this is over."

"… _fine,"_ I said. " _But I'm researching this later. And what was with the wierd psychic clone thing?"_

She gave me a good, long stare.

" _Right. No idea. Look, I'm just trying to size up our rescources before we fight."_

"Wish I could tell you I knew what was going on. Seems like we'll need to wing it."

" _Or not fight at all."_

"I really doubt you're going to say that by the time we get there."

" _No, really! I've learned my lesson."_

"If you say so."

I looked up at the silver line. It lead right through the police station. We worked our way around it to keep going. Except… the string didn't come out the other side of the station.

I guess the detectives found him first.

Kelia and I let out a deep breath. Both of us had been dreading whatever confrontation might've been coming. Finally, it ends non-violently. The two of us laughed. We had been so stressed, and it was already over.

Kelia patted me on the back. "Hey, we should say hi to Rowan! He'll love to meet you."

We walked into the station, looking for the room with Rowan in it. We passed the receptionist, who was asleep. Good to know that even in the human towns, receptionists were just as bad at their jobs.

We climbed a few flights of stairs. I wondered who the police had to save him from? I didn't know any gang names or anything. Wasn't there, like, a

We reached the door he was waiting in, and knocked.

…no response.

Kelia tried the doorknob, but it didn't open. It was locked?

"Maybe he's in a police interview or something?" Kelia said.

Something felt wrong here, but I could place what. But I knew my intuition was usually spot-on…

"… _Maybe."_

There was an air of unease as we waited. 5 minutes passed, and nobody even passed us in the hallway.

"Hey Kelia? Could you teleport in there? I'm getting kind of worried."

She said it like it was so easy. It was incredibly difficult to teleport somewhere you've never been. If I messed it up, well, let's just say it would be really bad if I messed it up.

That didn't stop me from doing it. Danger was my middle name.

I teleported through the door without a hitch. When I arrived, though, it was pitch-black. I heard some muffled sounds. It sounded like a voice.

I wanted to rush in head first, but again I remembered Katlyn's advice. I teleported out and got Katlyn's backup.

" _We need to bust this door down."_ I said.

"What?"

" _Something's wrong. It's pitch-black in there_." I summoned a psycho-cut and took a massive swing. The door went down.

Light streamed into the room. A human I could only assume was Rowan was tied to a chair.

So many thoughts ran through my mind. What was he doing here? Why would the police tie him up? Maybe another organization put him in the last place the police would look: their own HQ. Yeah, that made sense.

Kelia ran over and undid the bandana covering his mouth.

"Who did this?" she said.

"Go faster! She's coming!" Rowan said frantically.

"Who's coming?"

"Officer-"

He was cut off by a figure in the doorway. "I told you not to interfere with the investigation."

Officer Jenny walked into the room. "We found Rowan without your help, thank you very much. But you're persistent, I'll give you that. You must be pretty smart to find him here… maybe you'll be of use to the boss after all. If I have to kidnap you, too, so be it."

* * *

 _A/N: Okay, I'm sorry if the pacing was off here. I wanted to write a mystery, but then I realized I think I suck at writing mysteries. I'm much better at writing intrigue, putting little plot details that end up leading to plot twists later. Anyways, I hope the twists overcame the awful pacing, and didn't seem like they came out of nowhere. Next time, we're getting back to the more chapter-to-chapter business._

 _I just want to say, I'm going on vacation soon. I'll try to keep updating, but that's why they might get slower. Oh, who am I kidding, like I have a consistent upload schedule. But that's why it might slow down, if you're curious._

 _And now, a short song._

 _R-E-V-I-E-W_

 _Find out what if means to you!_

 _R-E-V-I-E-W_

 _Do it and you'll be cool!_

 _End of song._

 _Um…_

 _That was awkward._

 _Why do I have to keep one-upping myself on every reminder to review, again?_

 _Um…_

 _Next time, then!_

 _We haven't had a fight scene in two chapters. So, it's Jenny vs. Kelia. Time to reveal some character motivations in the house! See you then._


	7. Strings of Evolution

Strings of Evolution

\- - -Kelia- - -

Jenny stood at the edge of the room and had a sugar sweet smile on her face, just after saying she was the one behind everything.

"What the heck are you going on about?" I said. "Jenny, l-let's talk about this..."

Jenny chuckled. "Talk? How about I capture you and we'll talk later."

"You can't mean you were behind this the whole time! W-why?"

She casually leaned against a wall. "Oh, you think this is when I reveal my big evil motive to you? That's so naive of you to think I'd do that for you.."

Eris stepped in front of me defensively, gearing for a fight. Jenny didn't seem that fazed. "Aww, isn't that adorable. The cute wittle Kelia wants to protect its trainer." Kelia lowered her stance.

While her focus was diverted on Eris, I knew the battle hadn't started yet. I glanced over at Rowan. He was still tied up. My first priority, was helping him. I let Eris take care of her while I worked on rescuing Rowan. On his part, he made sure to not make a sound.

" _You aren't laying a finger on Rowan!"_ Eris said, also understanding my plan. She distracted her while I worked. Any moment now, the battle would begin. And I was fairly confident in our abilities.

Jenny didn't throw a pokeball out for a dual or anything. Eris was a bit confused. Jenny smiled at Eris. "Again, adorable. She probably thinks she's in for a _fight_. But that's not how I roll, sweetheart."

" _What are you blabbering about?"_ I was so close to getting Rowan untied…

"I don't do _Pokemon battles_ anymore. They're inneficient. I have a much better method. Allow me to give you a lesson…"

Just as I finished untying Rowan, she made her move. She pulled a ball out from behind her back and threw it… right at Eris. I was too far away to block it. The pokeball was pure black. A black light enveloped Eris and she was sucked into the pokeball.

I should've been able to block it. But I was too far away. I could do nothing but watch. I collapsed to my knees.

Jenny had a a smug smile on her face. "I know, you've heard the stories of other criminal gangs using pokemon to fight. Let me just say: what a stupid idea. If we lose, then what? And why would we fight when there are pokeballs that exist that can help us avoid fights altogether!" My heart kept sinking. I looked to Eris, helpless in a little black ball on the floo. But it was still shaking… "And by the way, I hope you aren't thinking of her escape. From these balls, escape is physically impossible."

"Why are you doing this? You're supposed to protect the people!"

"Did you not hear me? I said, I'm not doing a huge villain speech over here. I'm going to bring you and Rowan to a police car for 'questioning,' and we're going to disappear." She grabbed the taser from her belt and pointed at me. "Now stop wasting my time."

I tried to ignore here. "Keep fighting, Eris…" I said, both aloud and in telepathy.

Jenny, if it really was Jenny at all, chuckled. "I told you, escape is impossible. She's caught in a snag ball. Just so you know, it's built with the same technology as a masterball. It _never_ fails."

And yet, I didn't give up hope, not yet. Because the ball kept shaking.

Her face scrunched up, and she lowered her taser slightly. "What in the world is taking so long…?"

While she was distracted, I sprinted at her and kicked her in the face. For all her talk, she went down rather quickly.

"Run, Rowan!" I said. He bolted out the door while Jenny was on the floor. I grabbed the ball Eris was held in and bolted away. But while Jenny failed to catch Rowan, by the time I had run back and grabbed Eris' ball, she was standing in my way. Behind her, she slammed the door. Her nonchalaunt attitude was gone. Now, was angry.

"You… punk. You think you can interrupt our vision? We'll get Rowan back, one way or another. This changes nothing. But you… you deserve a lesson." She picked a pokeball from her side and threw it. I dodged to the side. For a second I thought she was going to try to capture me, but this time, she threw it at the ground like a normal pokemon trainer. Out spawned a Bisharp. A Bisharp with a silver line connecting to Jenny. Seriously, what was with all the silver lines?

"Bisharp, use Submission… on _her."_

All my mental quips melted away in an instant. You don't use moves on trainers. It's not done. This pokemon's arms were swords, for heaven's sake! I tried to formulate a plan in my mind, something I could do. She wouldn't listen to reason. Eris was trapped. With that silver line, the Bisharp would listen to almost anything it's trainer said.

As the blade came down, I knew, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I braced for the worst.

* * *

\- - - Eris- - -

As soon as the red light enveloped me, I felt darkness I shivered. Everything else was muted. I couldn't see anything. I fought and thrashed against it, but I was just floating in a void of it. No matter what I tried, it was unyielding. I couldn't even teleport away. Despite that, I told myself, there was no way this ball was going to take me out.

I gained a tiny bit of control, enough to hear words coming from the outside. _Jenny._ ". From these balls."

I kept thrashing about, trying to ward off the darkness, but no matter how hard I fought, it kept getting darker and darker. She couldn't be right. There had to be a way to escape… didn't there?

I heard more words, but they were getting drenched out by the oncoming darkness. I had to keep fighting… I had to keep fighting… I had to keep… I… I had to…

" _Keep fighting, Eris…"_

I HAD TO KEEP FIGHTING!

I pushed the darkness out of my head. There had to be something I could do. I shut out the darkness surrounding me, and I thought of happy things. I stopped fighting the darkness, I started ignoring, remembering my happier memories. I pushed it away. The darkness started fading, and through it, I saw what was happening in the outside world. I heard Jenny's confusion. And I saw Kelia kick Jenny in the face! And I saw Rowan escape. I was filled with hope, and the darkness kept fading. Kelia grabbed me and sprinted to the exit. The darkness was almost gone. Just a little more, and maybe, I could break out…

I saw Jenny block Kelia's exit, the pure hatred adorning her face. I smirked, happy to see that we were finally breaking though our cocky exterior. And she sent out the Bisharp, and… and it attacked.

When I saw that Bisharp heading towards Kelia, I knew I couldn't let it happen. If this ball was impossible to escape, then impossible was my freaking middle name!

The last of the darkness faded away and I sliced the pokeball down from the inside with the strongest psycho-cut of my life! My body started glowing as I teleported out and intercepted the Bisharp's blade in midair.

In that instant, so much was happening. Jenny was filled with pure shock. The Bisharp, the same. My arm to his. And Kelia…

The line between Kelia and I changed color at that point. At that point, both of us knew something, more than we had before. Even though we still barely knew each other, we understood one another. And we would both go to insane lengths to protect one another. We would do the impossible. We would risk our lives. In that was, she was just as much Gardevoir as I was. A trainer going out of her way to always protect me? It was totally backwards. That was the Gardevoir's job, wasn't it? Protecting their trainer at all costs? And yet she was doing it. When I broke out, our line glowed, from a friendly blue to a shining silver. Because in that moment, we were in perfect sync.

As I pivoted my body, to change my block into a strike, my glowed as my line did. I grew in size and stature. The spike on my chest grew outwards and my skirt elongated into a dress. A strand of hair covered my left eye. I evolved. And as I went in for my counter-strike, the changes didn't stop. My dress grew down my arms, weaved itself together into a cloak, a pure white one to cover my body from head to toe. A hood grew over my head, and the whole thing went down my legs, my back, my whole body. At the end of my transformation, a purple aura surrounded me. The string between Eris and I was a pure white.

I finished my psycho-cut into the Bisharp, and it went flying across the room, creating a crater in the wall.

After that, everyone was silent. I felt something… different about me. Looser. More powerful. Man, evolution ruled.

Kelia had a look of pure joy, that I was still here. That I had broken her hold, and that I had evolved. We were a team, both of us saving each other.

Bisharp just lay in the crator, unmoving. Had I just taken it down with one hit?

And Jenny… her face flipped between several expressions. Shock. Anger. Disappointment…and maybe a bit of joy?

Finally, she settle back to shock. "H-how!" Jenny said. "The snag balls, they're inescapable!"

"Tell that to Eris," Kelia said.

Jenny stared us down for a few seconds. She glanced at Scizor, but he still refused to move. She reached her hand to her belt, and I charged her. She would _not_ throw another ball at Us.

From behind, the Bisharp ran up behind me and launched a metal claw. I swiveled and parried the blow, knocked it away, and kept running, all in half a second.

Something felt… off about us. Us? About _me._ I felt I had a much better reaction time, a better frame of vision. It felt… right. Maybe it was just the evolution, maybe all Gardevoir were like this. I could consider that later. In an instant, I I was next to Jenny. I kicked the object she was grabbing for out from her hands. It was a walkie-talkie. In an instant, I understood her plan. She was a police officer. If someone saw the fight, they'd assume we were the bad guys. She was trying to call for backup! I knew there were other explanations, but that one felt _right._

I swiveled and deflected the Bisharp, who had charged me again. It was barely worth mentioning. Wow, Jenny was right, she wasn't a great fighter. Her Bisharp's strategy started and ended at "attack." In a fluid motion, after the parry, I swooped down and picked up the walkie-talkie and tossed it to Kelia, who caught it easily. I heard her calling for backup, explaining what was happening. Jenny's shock finally shifted to anger again.

Bisharp charged me again, and I sighed. It was like the definition of insanity. I got another psycho-cut ready.

As it ran, though, the Bisharp's stance changed and it started glowing. The silver bond between the two of them started to glow white, just like ours. Bisharp's body changed. It became somehow slimmer. The silver metal took on a golden sheen. The red metal turned black. It picked up speed, doubling it, tripling it in just this little room. I tried to block its strike with my arm, which I did, but it was much stronger than me. It's strike overpowered my parry and it knocked me across the room.

I leapt to my feet. The metal, it didn't hurt me in the slightest. The psychic energy surrounding me absorbed the blow. Being a Gardevoir ruled!

After that, I steeled myself. This was when the real fight begun.

I rushed in before they could make a plan, summoning another psycho-cut. The Bisharp attempted a block, but I swung low, sweeping it off its feet. I hit it with a fire punch, knocking the air out of its non-existant lungs. I tried to hit it while it was down, but it was back on its feet again fast, and we kept fighting… I knew, if he got through my psychic barrier, I was weak to steel. His strikes would all be super-effective. But he was having trouble getting to attack the barrier at all. After my initial strike, honestly, so did I. Swords clashed and the fight raged on.

* * *

\- - -Kelia- - -

I felt a strange power racing through me. I saw everything with so much more clarity. I didn't even have to warn Eris what I saw, anything I thought, she knew. I found myself copying her moves as she made them. So this was what the fabled 'burst evolution' was like. I understood her. Our motives aligned.

As Kelia and Bisharp fought, I was like a second set of eyes. I kept a close eye on Jenny, to see if she was going to try anything funny. Meanwhile, she had her eyes on me, maybe ensuring I didn't kick her in the face again. At this point, she was between me and the door, though, she wasn't making any moves to escape.

The sound of swords clashing echoed around the sound-proof room. For all her avoiding a fight at all costs, now that a fight had started, she was taking this fight awfully passionetly. I kept expecting her to throw a snag ball into the mix, but she just stood and watched.

She had to be up to something.

The backup said would arrive in a minute 30 seconds ago. How would she escape in time?

Still, I redirected my attention to the battle. When I saw Eris there fighting, with all her heart and soul, and I stopped worrying. Whatever she was planning, we could take her.

I saw Eris fighting with all her might and I was sucked into it myself. I felt myself there, fighting the Scizor to a standstill. I was still standing there, surveying it, but I was in the battle, too.

From above, a strike. Dive downwards. Leg sweep. Bisharp jumped over it, so swipe the psycho-cut high. Land a grazing blow. Retreat back. Launch a psychic. Scizor resists and charges again. Dodge to the side.

Left, right, side to side, complete concentration, complete sync. Slash, swipe, stab, total sync.

There was a certain rhythm to it.

We threw another cut at the Bisharp when we thought we could, except the Scizor wasn't there. From my vision again, I saw it had somehow gotten behind us… I mean, behind Eris, and I wasn't sure how. Before we could move out of the way, he grabbed Eris from behind and pulled her into a vice-grip, pinning her arms to her side. He dug into her with her sword-like arms. I knew, she was shielded by a layer of psychic energy, but it was rapidly breaking away. I felt a small cut on my arm, and I knew we were nearly through. Eris struggled, but she couldn't find a way to break out.

I knew what to do. As Eris was still struggling, I controlled our psychic energy and activated a teleport for Eris, to get out of the Bisharp's hold.

From behind, I got a solid hit. Another fire punch. Eris and I realized at the same time, why not do that more?

We teleported behind the Bisharp and hit it with another solid blow. It had trouble keeping up with the onslaught. It had no time to react. Then I teleported again, just before it could figure out where I was so it could fight back. It was disorienting, but exilerating. I teleported to its left and targeted a strike where it wasn't blocking, and my strike went right through it. A red light enveloped the Bisharp and it disappeared.

My vision was snapped back into my body, and I saw what had happened. Jenny returned her pokemon back into her ball. Eris and I exchanged an uneasy glance.

Jenny smiled. She was confident again, back to how she was when we first got in here. "What's with the looks, girls? You won. I didn't feel like risking my Pokémon's life. You want me to fight until he was beaten into the oblivion?"

"What are you playing at?" I growled.

She leaned against a wall. "Why, nothing. You've already beaten me. Heck, your burst evolution is so much stronger than me I don't stand a chance."

Burst evolution. That confirmed it, that's what this was. But we could worry about it later.

"The police will come in here any second," I said. "You're finished."

She jingled her keychain. "The door's bulletproof, and I have the only key."

" _I can easily take that from you, you know!"_

She smiled. "But don't you you want to know who I really am?"

I looked into her mischievous eyes. "I thought you said you weren't talking."

"That was before you two proved your worth."

" _Proved our worth? Are you kidding me!?"_

She gestured at Eris. "I acted rashly, I'll admit it. I suppose I planned on asking after I captured you. But now that I've lost, I have a few questions for you. She broke out of a snag ball, and I want to know how."

"I don't know. Because we believe in each other!" I said. I know, it sounded incredibly cheesy, but it's true.

Jenny tilted her head from side to side. "Hmm… what an interesting guess. Too bad that bug was already taken care of in the design phases. We kknow the scientific strength of _friendship,_ we're not stupid.."

"What are you going on about? More importantly, why should I keep listening to you?"

"Why, I can see it in your face. You're just dying to know. You're as curious as I, how could a pokemon escape what was essentially a masterball?"

I cocked my head. "I heard of a time where a Whiscash ate one…"

She cut me off. "Never mind that! Look, our balls don't work exactly like master balls They're much more potent. They say masterballs can't be broken out of… that's not entirely true. This _friendship,_ it really can overwhelm the power of even a masterball. But we found a solution. It transfers another pokeball's ownership to be its own, and in case the trainer and pokemon weren't close to begin with, adds in an element of submission. If you two are so strongly woven together, it should've used that against you. And if you weren't, you shouldn't have been able to break out in the first place! So, I ask you, where's the catch?"

The two of us stayed silent. I knew exactly how she broke out. If these people really were this big of a threat… then I could never put Eris in a ball, or else a snag ball might capture her instead. In the moment of panic, Eris' cloak faded away, and I felt the strange energy leaving me. I was just plain old Kelia again.

"So you do know why it's happening? Interesting…"

"What, can you read our minds now?"

"Oh, no. I mean, you two made it pretty obvious. Your faces, the burst fading, it wasn't exactly a hard thing to guess."

I growled. Why, that little… Wait a second. I smiled, because I realized my situation. She had nothing on me. She'd used up her tricks, he now had _her_ trapped. "Hey, Jenny, if you're so smart… you know you can't go through that door, right? I told the police that you've gone rouge, and Rowan's proof of it. So you know what? You're at our mercy for now. We get to ask the questions. So tell me, who do you work for?"

Jenny smirked at me. "Oh? This girl's showing some fangs, now?"

"You kidnapped Rowan! And I want answers. And don't think I'll go easy on you if you don't give me them!"

"Is that Gardevoir your only pokemon?" she said.

"…Yes? I'm the one asking questions here, not you!" What was with people and asking if it was only me and Eris?

"Interesting. So I'll be the first to tell you about the Dragon Bursts…"

An explosion rocked the room, and Eris and I were thrown off our feet. The door was blown wide open, and a bunch of officers swarmed into the room. I put my hands up. The officers ran right past me and arrested Jenny. She didn't even resist arrest, she just let the handcuffs be put on her.

"Great job holding out until we arrived," one of the officers said to me. "We'll take it from here."

I stared as Jenny smiled in my direction, even while she was being arrested. It was like her plan all along was to get captured, even though that was impossible.

She was taken away, and just like that, it was over.

* * *

Before I had a chance to take everything in, I was taken away for police questioning. I don't remember anything they asked me. 15 minutes in, an officer burst in, saying Jenny had escaped.

I knew I would be seeing her again sometime soon…

* * *

 _A/N: Hey guys! Sorry this took me so long. I was working on some of my other projects. Unfortunately, you can only expect weekly updates out of this, now, at most. If this becomes more popular, I might change my mind, but this isn't exactly my highest priority… I'm juggling three fics at this point, so I'll try my best to get this one updated semi-regularly at least. For now, I end you on a non-cliffhanger for once._

 _By the way, if you think this is going a bit far for just the first few chapters, already a Gardevoir that can burst evolve and all before even the first gym, but for the record, this story is far from over. I mean, for one, the gyms aren't the focus of the story. For two, I have a pet peeve for fics that advertise Gardevoir then have a Kirlia for, like, 50 chapters. So that's why the quick evolution, so we can get to the best pokemon of all time being the star. I mean, storywise, Kirlia was already really strong, so she had to be close to evolution._

 _For three, they aren't close enough to activate burst at will, not yet. I don't want her to be too OP yet. I mean, in the end, she has to be strong enough for an inevitable 1 v 6, right? Anyways, for now, they can't summon it at will, its only activates in life-threatening scenarios, so not to make her too op for now. And, we all knew burst evolution was coming,might as well put it out there. What's more interesting is what comes next. Because if you think that this story's interest ends at burst, you're sorely mistaken._

 _Next on the adgenda… oh._

 _Okay, I can't top the last way to ask for a review._

… _Or can I?_

 _(Line)_

" _Oh wise one, can you please enlighten us! How will we beat the last way!"_

" _All right, young one…_

 _Ahem._

' _On reviews, I write a poem._

 _That last one, can I beat?_

 _The answer to that riddle,_

 _Is no.'"_

"… _What? That didn't even rhyme!"_

" _You don't even rhyme."_

" _That doesn't make sense!"_

" _You don't make any sense!"_

" _I saw that comeback coming a mile away!_

"… _Welp." *jumps off conveniently placed cliff*_

" _Wat just happen."_

 _(Line)_

… _Well that was weird._

 _Um… Next time, whenever I get it out, we do fun stuff. You know, gyms and stuff. And just maybe, we might get some bone fide character development! See you then._


End file.
